When you invest in a property for Airbnb, your occupancy rate is a critical metric of your business. In fact, it’s the most important measure of how well your vacation rental is doing. Without your occupancy rate being where you need it, you’re not going to be able to generate a profit. The higher your occupancy rate, the more money you make.

Of course, those concepts may be simple, but it’s not quite as simple to maximize your occupancy.

It takes work and strategy.

The following are six steps you can take to boost your occupancy rate and make your Airbnb rental more profitable.

Reduce Your Minimum Nightlight Stay

It’s understandable why you would want to have a minimum nightly stay on your listing. It reduces your workload because you have fewer turnovers.

However, the modern Airbnb renter isn’t the same as a vacation home renter in the past, who almost, as a rule, would book a seven-day stay.

Renters want flexibility and a lot of people like to get away for a night or two. If your listing doesn’t have flexibility, it’s going to get passed over in favor of the ones that do.

Do the math and make the minimum nightly stay as short as you can financially and logistically.

You’ll not only be more appealing, but you’ll show up in more searches for people looking specifically for a shorter stay.

Update Your Prices Regularly

You need to make sure that you’re updating your prices as necessary and that you’re optimizing them to stay competitive for all of your date ranges.

Don’t set it and forget it on your pricing, and keep things the same throughout the year.

For example if you have a rental in the Florida Keys, there’s no way that your prices should stay consistent from the winter to the summer when demand drops during that time.

When you’re reminding yourself to check your prices regularly, it can also help you keep your listing current.

Add Amenities

If you don’t have certain amenities, now’s a good time to add them.

For example, an espresso machine is an inexpensive amenity that can go a long way in the eyes of renters.

If there are two listings and one has an espresso machine, and the other doesn’t, the thought of having to leave the rental every morning and pay for coffee could very easily sway someone to the home with the machine.

Encourage Your Renters to Leave Reviews

Reviews are the most important part of your listing for many people.

You can get good reviews by first being accurate and managing expectations in your listing. Being a good communicator and someone who is helpful, warm and friendly, will also encourage people to leave reviews.

Beyond that, leave fun reminders for your guests when they check out to leave you a review.

Use Instant Book

We live in a world where people expect a response right away. With that in mind, if possible, enable the Instant Book option on your listing. People don’t want to wait for a response, particularly if it’s a last-minute booking.

If you want to be appealing to last-minute guests and make things easier on yourself to offer these options, set up your rental for automation with things like digital locks.

Become a Superhost

Finally, becoming an Airbnb Superhost can help you improve your occupancy rates.

Airbnb has requirements including having at least a 50% review rate and maintaining that and having a 4.8 overall rating. You should have no cancellations that don’t fall into the category of extenuating circumstances, and you should have at least a 90% response rate.

When you qualify as a Superhost, Airbnb has a lot of features that are going to make your listings highly visible, plus this lends itself to your credibility.

According to Airbnb, their Superhosts can potentially earn 22% more in their rental income.