Set a price
The price for the homestay is up to the host. You must state how much the room is per night. Weekly and monthly prices are optional. In case the guest wants to stay longer, it is recommended that you input special prices for weekly and monthly staying guests to make your homestay more appealing. Setting competitive prices will help you get more guests. Have a look at other hosts that are around your area and compare their prices in order to get a better understanding of the prices before you set your own. The prices can be changed at anytime during the year. The guest will pay a 15% deposit of the total homestay fee and will pay the remaining 85% to the host only after arrival. The host and guest will arrange how the remaining money will be paid to the host before arrival.
Descriptions
Please include an attention grabbing listing title and descriptions to your profile to attract potential guests. Including a catchy title and elaborate descriptions of your home will appeal to the host better.
Photos
To get bookings from guests, it is very important to include a number of high quality photos of your home. In order to be listed on our website as a host, you must upload 3 photos. 1) Upload a profile photo that shows your face 2) A photo that shows the exterior of your home 3) A photo that shows the room that the guest will be staying in. The photos should be well focused with good lighting and contrasting. The photos of the room that the guest will stay in should be to a quality that the guest can figure out how big the room is. Please upload a photo of yourself smiling as your profile photo. After uploading photos on your profile, you can edit and upload the photos as many times as you wish.
Activating the account
After reviewing the information that you have inputted, and have found that there are not any major errors, we will activate your account. If you need to fix any of the information that you have included, homestayin.com will contact you individually.
Homestay ranking
The ranking of your homestay listing will be determined by the quality of your profile. We recommend that you increase the quality of your profile to be listed higher in the listing. Other aspects that will determine your listing position will be the quality of your photos, your response rate and time to the guest’s messages, availability, and the number of past guests. It is also important to set a competitive price and keep your availability calendar up to date at all times.
Booking availability
Your listing number will be determined by taking into account your room availability from the point that the guest is trying to make a booking. Please update your availability calendar frequently for your guests to take interest in your profile.
Quality of the host
Hosts with high quality profiles will receive more bookings. Please upload photos that show the interior and exterior of your home well, and especially good photos of the room that the guest will stay in. If you include good descriptions to go with the photos, it will appeal to the guests even more. We recommend that you frequently update the information on your profile.
Response rate
How often the host responds to the guest’s messages is made into a percentage and included on the host’s profile page. Guests usually send messages more to hosts with higher response rates so it is important to respond to messages when they come.
Response time
How fast the hosts responds to the guest’s messages is also included on the host’s profile page. Guests prefer hosts that have a faster response time so we advise you to answer the guest’s questions as soon as possible. Usually, it is best to respond to guests within 24 hours.
Number of past guests
You are listed higher in the listing if you have successfully hosted a guest on a number of occasions. For this reason, it is better to increase the number of successful bookings even if the homestay period is short.
Room availability
Guests will send a message to the host to check whether they will be available on specific dates. By doing this, the guest can check the availability of the host once again, and also allow them to make bookings. If the host is available for booking on the dates that the guest has chosen, they will click the “Yes, I am available” button on the e-mail that we send them and confirm the booking.