The winter season is almost upon us and if your property is in the mountains and your guests are skiers or families who want to spend some time in the snow – you are no doubt getting ready – on many different levels: Maybe you are upgrading the furniture or decor or you are sharpening up the description of your property.
Recently I spoke to the father of a family with 2 young children who had just booked their winter break in the Alps. Josh told me that he was really struggling with getting advance information on all the different skirun options, distances, facilities and ski schools for the kids.
How do you get that sort of information to your guests in advance? Do you have a pdf or some document that you copy and paste into your emails?
Well – one of the easiest ways of helping your guests get organised before the arrival is by sending them access to your own online guidebook which holds all the details and options for their stay.
Try it out with our 6 month Free Trial now!
If your property is in a town or quite easily accessible and you have a keylock installed, late arrivals are not a big deal. If on the other hand, your property is quite difficult to reach or a bit remote and you rely on local managers to do the meet & greet – then late arrivals will definitely be a challenge. This is a case with one of my properties and recently I have found that several guests made a surprise announcement that their flights will arrive at 23:00 or after midnight and how could they access the property. In our case visitors would not easily find our property, let alone in the dark. Therefore our local manager always meets guests, takes them to the property and settles them in – a warm welcome and service guests are grateful for and appreciate.
As it takes up to 2 hours after airport arrival to get to the meeting point it can be a real stretch for our local manager to attend to guests late at night and I have now introduced late arrival fees and have started communicating these fees right at the beginning of a confirmed booking.
I wonder if there is a late night arrival trend as prices tend to get cheaper the later or more inconvenient flight times become. How do you manage late arrivals and if you have late arrival fees, how are they structured?
While much of Europe is still struggling with the snow, ice and heavy rain – you should be preparing your vacation rental for the new season! Here are some tips to help attract more bookings and make your guests feel welcome:
- Renovate
The paint on your walls is no longer fresh? Bits have fallen off the walls and windows have cracks? Now is the time to replace, renew and freshen up the “bones” of your holiday home.
- Upgrade your style
Think quality: wow your guests with the type of furniture and decoration that you would appreciate and feel comfortable with, in other words: the more high-spec and personal your décor, the more it will be appreciated. So out with tired furniture and appliances, in with quality material. Ditch the plastic chairs on the terrace and invest in some funky wooden or fibre outdoor furniture. And while you are at it: give your property a style makeover – review colour schemes and fabrics – it is easy to make an impression with new wall colours and matching cushions & throws.
- Spring clean
This seems obvious but it is essential to ensure that your property is super clean – it does not only apply to the inside but extends to all external areas such as your terrace, garden and pool, so scrub, polish and weed!
- Showcase your property with professional photos or video walk-thrus
It helps to regularly add new pictures or videos to your holiday rental online gallery, especially if you have up-styled or renovated. Every upgrade and improvement in your rental should be showcased and is testimony to the fact that you care about the property and your guests!
- Go digital and interactive with your rental home guidebook and manual
Your guestbook is tired, tatty and needs a thorough update? Why not go digital? Use the HOSTISSIMO interactive guidebook to give your guests access and insight into the “inner workings” of your vacation rental (such as directions, Meet & Greet, access and wifi info), a guest manual (to explain how your appliances and other features work) and personal recommendations (local attractions, shopping, restaurants and important contacts such as nearest doctors, hospitals or embassies). And you don’t need to set up a website – HOSTISSIMO has done that for you: all you have to do is copy and paste the information from your guestbook into the digital guidebook and then publish. Send your guests a link in advance so they can prepare for their visit and it will help them in case of questions and even emergency situations. In addition it is linked to google maps and gives directions and can be accessed in different languages.
You are not a hotel and that’s why your guests have chosen your vacation rental property – but boy are they demanding! They still expect all or many of the attributes of a hotel but with the added charm and personal flavour of a private home. Once they have chosen your property for its location/amenities/style, they have also left the relative anonymity of the booking platform – and this is where you can shine and make a difference to the hospitality experience! And I don’t mean this from an amenity perspective. Unlike with a hotel there is no standardized pillow offering or bar service. With an interactive guestbook you have an opportunity not only to create your own brand, but also provide reassurance as well as the most precious of all joys embodied in the German term “Vorfreude”: the joy of anticipation. And you can do this with the way you provide information and a truly personalised welcome.
A lot of your guests’ pre-vacation experience depends on solid and positive communications. And that includes not only the details of how to reach your property, but also information about the property, activities and restaurants carefully curated and presented by you. The more personal this welcome is, the more it will be appreciated. You may include a personal video message and for guests from other countries our platform lets your guests choose their language.
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