Create an invite-only Experience for family and friends

As a new Experience Host, one of your most important goals is to gain those first crucial reviews—these help you build credibility so guests can feel confident booking with you. But how do you go about getting them?

One convenient way to start: An invite-only soft opening, or test run of your Experience. A test run can help you get comfortable with the Airbnb platform—and with the details of offering your Experience.

An invite-only booking is a great opportunity for a safe group of friends and family to give feedback on the Experience. This can go a long way toward easing whatever anxiety or stress new Hosts may have, while also helping to work out logistical issues or concerns with the Experience itself.

These bookings can also help your Experience get its first reviews, which builds credibility and shows potential future guests that yours is an Experience worth booking.

It’s easy for Hosts to create and share an invite-only link to their Experience with family and friends. With an invite-only link that’s hidden from the public, you don’t have to worry about someone you don’t invite booking your first test-run Experience.

Go to your Dashboard » Calendar » Schedule an Experience » change Booking type to Private group (hidden from public). If you want to adjust the pricing or set a private group rate, you can do that here, as well.

Once the Experience is scheduled, click on the specific Experience instance in your agenda » scroll down to Share Link » tap Copy.

All that’s left is to invite your prospective guests. The link will take your friends and family to the specific invite-only listing of your Experience.

There’s no limit on the number of times you can share private links to invite-only bookings—consider keeping them in mind for special occasions like birthdays or when out-of-town friends visit

While creating an invite-only Experience can be helpful in getting reviews and growing your business, there are a few important things to keep in mind:

• Guests who attend invite-only events should not be obligated to leave a review.
• If guests do leave a review, it should acknowledge their relationship with you (whether you’re related, a friend, etc.), or that you offered them a discount for the Experience (if applicable). Applicable laws may also require this kind of disclosure.
• Any review should be based on the guest’s honest, true, and personal opinions about the Experience and conform to our Reviews Policy.

The goal here is transparency, and the result is a win-win situation for everyone: Your friends and family get to try out your Experience in an invite-only group (at a discounted rate, if you choose), while you hone the skills to build your offering into something extraordinary.

Learn more tips and tricks for testing out your new Experience.