At Stay Local, we’re all about shining a light on the heart of our communities.
Our blog brings you news, insights, and practical advice on the UK holiday rental market, high street updates, and real-world tips to help small businesses and holiday home owners grow.
Whether you run a holiday let, a café, a shop, or a local group, this is your space.
Airbnb’s machine-learning system looks at hundreds of signals and can block or redirect higher-risk entire-home bookings, especially around New Year’s Eve. It is a pre-booking filter, not monitoring inside the house. Hosts still set the rules. Read more
A viral chart said 65 per cent of Airbnb listings display as 5.0. Airbnb says hosts cannot delete reviews, and that weak listings come off. Guests say theirs vanished anyway. The 4.8 you are protecting does not sort your house from the one next door. Read more
Every Airbnb booking is a pie. The platform takes a slice before the plate reaches you. The stars and the damage badge are what that slice feels like it buys. Neither does the job a £1.25 passport check does. Read more
The reason a direct booking feels risky is the missing star rating. Those stars do not sort guests. The passport check is a £1.25 Stripe step in the account you already need for the card, and the scan stays with Stripe. Read more
A five-star guest score feels like the reason to stay on the platform. It is the normal score. The system punishes a blunt review, so the number cannot tell you who to let in. A direct booking can check the passport instead. Read more
Lisa Nandy told the Commons the scheme will be up and running in full by March 2027. It is not live now. Claims that it launched this year, or in October 2026, are wrong. Read more
Fees have shifted onto hosts, Strict cancellation is gone for most listings, Booking.com has loosened its pricing leash in Europe, and Wales is about to register every overnight let. Read more
Which? found guests arriving at The Liberty Bounds after a Somerset owner's pages were phished. Staff turned away up to 20 people a day. The login you use to manage the listing is the asset they want. Read more
Guests keep saying Spain is cheaper than your cottage. They are usually holding a deal week with flights and food against a school-holiday house that includes neither. Here is the short list you can point to. Read more
A written answer confirms a review of short-term let tax treatment. The Telegraph says the Chancellor is looking at treating holiday lets as second homes. Nothing is law until the Budget. The 140/70 test still decides the bill this week. Read more
A Glasgow host let a flat for £68 a night to guests who said they wanted a quiet drink. She put the damage at more than £3,500. The platform paid £570. Those figures are her account in a magazine feature. AirCover is not a policy you own. Read more
Criminals take over a host or hotel's Booking.com account, then message the guest with real dates and names asking them to 'verify' a card. Action Fraud logged 532 UK reports and £370,000 lost. Here is how it works, and why a booking on your own site does not have that middleman login. Read more
Scotland is already charging, Wales starts next April, and England only announced the power on 10 September. The host is the taxpayer. You can swallow the cost. You cannot skip the return. Read more
The scheme is confirmed in law and still not in force. Platforms will want a number. Fire officers and insurers already want the same six documents. Assemble them while engineers still have diary space. Read more
A camera pointed at a bed in Madrid, lookalike booking sites adding markups of up to 85 per cent, a guest who would not leave, and review threats used as leverage. None of it is a typical week. The useful part is the distance between the two sides of the booking. Read more
The last split-fee hosts move onto Airbnb's 15.5 per cent cut, damage photos now have to be original files, house rules need platform approval, and Wales starts registering visitor stays. England's register still has no date. Read more
