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If you do it, then make it unique and make it about what guests might like.
Make it an experience
Maximise the groups you can attract by accepting:
Photos are super important. Airbnb offer a photographer for limited locations. Check your listing and see if they offer this service. Make sure you at least have photos of (and in this order):
No guest wants to click through 20 photos of the garden before they get to the living room or bedrooms. Take some pics of each room from different positions and then take detail photos of what's in the room.
Be as descriptive of your space as you can.
If something in your house isn’t right just mention it in your listing. As long as your guests know about it before they book then your guest can make the decision if they're happy to accept this negative aspect. It might be something like:
Add specific house rules like:
As a guest in our home we ask you to:
Which Platform should I use? We don’t use stayz or booking.com. Our opinion is these platforms are terrible for hosts, you can’t control what bookings you accept, what your listing looks like and you get no insight on the guests. These platforms are more suited to hotel type accommodation where it's just a room
Locking things away: Try to not lock too many rooms or cupboards. But do not leave personal items accessible either.
Leave and advertise appliances like rice cooking and nutribullets, Sometimes you'll leave items that are 'trending' that guests may not necessarily use themselves. Other items are essentials like, Espresso machines, Kettle, Toaster
Record videos and add to Facebook or YouTube on how to use your appliances
Neighbours
Your neighbours are your greatest allies.
OK that's a lot about neighbours but we've never had any issues with guests or neighbours.
Keep linen simple. We use Ikea doonas and doona covers. Sheet sets , make sure your sheets are good quality Egyptian cotton. towels are generally mixed brands. Make sure all your linen, towels are white. Keep a set of grey towels, face washers for Wedding Preppers.
If you accept children:
Furniture: We buy most items 2nd hand. If they’re good quality no one will realized. You also reduce our impact from fast-furniture. If you want us to find 2nd hand furniture listings in your area we'd LOVE to help. No changes, Just a list of options that suit your decor.
Guests can’t cook. It's a generalisation but also true. Don’t leave them expensive utensils and cooking appliances but also don’t leave cheap ones. Only have silicone cooking spoons and spatulas. Leave them non-stick items like fry pans. Make it as easy for them to 'get it right'. No one wants to worry about replacing pans and bowls if they get ruined during cooking
Teas and Coffees: Include good quality hot choc, coffee & tea supplies and tools. This is Victoria after all. No instant coffee allowed, except if you’ve also got the good stuff
Other consumables: We like to leave general kitchen supplies like oils, butter, jams and spreads, chutneys and sauces, spices, flour, sugar. We also leave common pantry items like tinned tomatoes, rice, canned items, pasta. It's not meant to be a meal but emergency supplies. It's so interesting that these are hardly ever used. But guests seeing them in the pantry and us offering them makes a positive impression.
Remember: All guests supplies are tax deductible.
Digital sensors for sound and temperature: If you’re in a built up area consider installing Minut to monitor music levels. They also monitor temperatures inside the house. Or a similar digital device.
Messaging at the time of booking is crucial to establish the relationship w guests. Include:
Preset messages so you can send:
Airbnb support are brilliant! We have had amazing experiences with them. They respond swiftly, they're knowledgeable and they want to help.
If you dont get the outcome you want, ensure you try again. Like all organisations you'll get different levels of expertise when you contact them. That's OK. But ensure you try again
If something negative does happen w a guest...... DO NOT accept a settlement with a problem guest unless you're OK with it. Once you settle the matter is then closed and you can't retry.
Always, ALWAYS, make sure when checking in your guests you have:
Meeting guests: We didn't meet our guests when we first started back in 2016. We would make sure all the above was ready then leave the guests to find and explore the house on their own. Then in 2019 we started meeting them. While our reviews have always been 5* we've noticed that our guests really appreciate meeting us, allowing us to give then a 5min tour and then leaving them to enjoy their space for the rest of their stay. During the meeting though we're able to run through list of 'here's where you find the tea, have you used AppleTV before' and then cater the depth of our tour based on what they're interested in.
Labels & Instructions: This is a tough balance for us. We want our guests to enjoy as much of the house as possible but we also don't want them to walk into the space and see a label on each cupboard or instruction books om how to use stuff.
Leave out the bottle opener: This is also akin to our labelling conflict. We strategically choose what items to leave out in the open. There's nothing more frustrating that walking into a space and not being able to find the obvious things. So our cutlery is out on the bench, the bottle opener is on the window sill, air-conditioner controls are on the tabletops, oil is in an easy to reach place. Think about what most of your guests will need straight away and find a way to leave it out, but tidy.
On Airbnb we REALLY appreciate the reviews. This is one of 2 primary ways we get a sense of who the person booking is and if there's any signs of dodgy-ness. The reviews, you're really only looking for something negative written about them. A lack of reviews is not an indication of a high risk guest.
Our 2nd top tip is the opening messages from the guest. Make sure they tell you about the reason for their stay and who's joining them. If they don't tell you then ask them in a light-hearted way. 'We'd love to know about your trip', 'oh please don't say it's a work trip, our areas too pretty to do work from'.
Whatever the guest is telling you, does it make sense?: They use the word 'we' but it's only 1 person they've selected.
On Airbnb you can see how long the guest has had their Airbnb profile. If they're just joined Airbnb it's not necessarily a bad thing. If they joined 3 years ago and don't have any reviews, again, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Their profile name says one thing but their message uses a different name. Again, not necessarily a negative indicator.
The only times we've been hesitant are:
None of these are reasons to decline a booking, but they are reasons for us to ask so. SO many more questions.
So who do we decline....we haven't yet but we have told guests we don't think the property will suit them and they've always ended the conversation. Keep in mind if you don't feel comfortable with a booking request, trust your instincts and contact Airbnb
Leave instructions for the guests on your fridge. Let them know what you want them to do or not do. For instance:
Pet peeve: Hosts that ask guests to put the bins out on the curb before they leave, turn the hot water off. That's not the guests job, that's the host or the management company.
Check the house as close to the time the guest leaves as possible.
We've had so little issues with guests and we've had 3000+ guests over the years. When we do have problems:
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