What makes your guest experience a memorable one? Is it the meet and greet or the welcome pack you’ve left for their arrival? Perhaps it’s your beachside location, or the luxury toiletries you’ve added in each bathroom suite?

Each guest will have their own opinion on what makes the guest experience a positive one. From a host’s point of view, the best way to ensure that every experience you deliver is an exceptional one, is to start delivering pre-stay and keep on going until after your guests have left.

Let’s take a look at ways to enhance the guest experience from start to finish.

The pre-stay guest experience

The guest journey doesn’t start on a plane or when they arrive at your door. It starts with a dream. It starts when a traveler dreams about taking a vacation, thinking about where they want to go and what they want to experience.

From the minute they find you, whether on your book direct website, through your Airbnb listing, or your social media posts, their experience with you has started.

Deborah Labi of The Guest INN-spector is a connoisseur of vacation rentals.
After owning and managing her own Sydney apartments and staying in properties around the world, she found that one of the biggest issues we face in the vacation rental industry is inconsistency.

“I can stay in a beautiful place one week and everything is just perfect and then the next week I arrive with great expectations to find a property that is nothing like the description or photos.”

Expectation vs. Reality

Overselling is a huge no-no when it comes to marketing your property. It’s one of the biggest disappointments for a guest when they arrive to find that a vacation rental is nothing like the description or photos that prompted them to book.

It’s also one of the biggest provocations for low score reviews.

When it comes to marketing your vacation rental, honesty is always the best policy.

• Are you situated on a noisy street? Tell the guest
• Is it hard to park? Tell the guest
• Is your apartment located in a building with no lights? You got this right…!?

The same with photos, if you display photos which are not true to the current standard of your property, you’ll have disappointed guests to contend with.

Are your communication skills up to scratch?

Deborah tells us that another factor which can make or break the pre-stay guest experience is getting the communication right once you’ve accepted a booking.

How many emails should you send and what information should you include?

“Sometimes I make a booking and receive no further information and in other instances, I receive a constant stream of updates. Too many and irrelevant is just annoying!"

What is important is planning out your pre-stay guest communication. What do you want to tell them and how often should you contact them before their stay? 

You can break it down into two categories:

1. What do they need to know?

Check-in/check-out times, the address and how to arrive, how to access your vacation rental, booking conditions and house rules

2.  What do they want to know?

All about the destination, insider restaurant recommendations and best places to shop, best beaches, and the added touches around your home - free Wifi & Netflix, kids play area and beach toys.

An absolute no-no is no contact at all, even when they ask a question.

One experience Deborah recounted was a stay where she had specifically asked if there was an elevator in the building and received no response. She arrived with heavy suitcases to find these ⬇️

Delivering a 10/10 ‘On arrival’ guest experience

Expectation vs. reality and a lack of communication are evident in the example above.

The moral of this story?

If you have multiple stairs to your home and no elevator, make sure it’s clearly communicated in your listing description and in your pre-stay communications. Make sure to answer EVERY query from guests and that way, they can make informed decisions when booking and can’t complain when they arrive.

Easy access

If you have your pre-stay communication spot-on, your guests can arrive and access your home with ease. No surprise stairs or difficulty getting access to the key.

Since Covid, many guests prefer a contactless check-in so it’s highly recommended to give them a choice.

Would they prefer to be met and given a tour of your home to learn how things work?

Or would they prefer to enjoy a completely independent stay with a keyless entry system and digital welcome pack to get them started? This is a great option for the digital nomads.

A Warm Welcome

Whether you offer an in-person or contactless arrival, a welcome gift is always appreciated and a great way to start the vacation.

There are three ways you can elevate the guest experience with a welcome gift:

1. Add local products: a Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, a Texas-style hot sauce or locally baked cookies. This should be a product that they can use or take home as a memento of their amazing guest experience.
2. Offer to do a grocery run: The first thing your guests will need when they arrive is a kitchen stocked with essential food products: coffee, milk, bread, butter. However, a grocery run prior to their arrival is probably the last thing they want to do. If your welcome gift features welcoming local products, why don’t you offer a grocery shopping service so they can start enjoying their vacation the minute they arrive.
3. Personalizing your welcome gift: If you want to go one step further in delighting your guest, you could tailor your welcome gift to your guest. This will require some pre-stay investigation, but it will definitely score you brownie points and positive reviews.

- Do they suffer from celiac disease? Add gluten-free products.

- Are they traveling with kids? Make up a special kids welcome pack with a sweet treat and a small toy to keep them amused when they arrive, such as a drawing set, so the parents can get acquainted with your home.

- Are they traveling with pets? A special doggy welcome gift will be much appreciated.

Look at your vacation rental from the guest’s perspective

Deborah says one of the most important tasks she delegates to her clients is to look at the vacation rental from a guest’s perspective. It’s easy to set up a home with your own personal taste or requirements, but is this what the guest wants?

“I stayed in a client’s apartment once and their kitchen was clearly set-up for tall people. Which I am not! I couldn’t reach the glasses which were located on the top shelf of an over-work-surface unit and the crazy thing was that there was plenty of shelving space and the pre-made shelving slots for them to have made the shelf lower. They had clearly not thought about their shorter guests!

What’s more, the microwave was precariously installed on a wall bracket that was also high up and with a stiff open door button, it could have easily fallen on top of me as I had to reach up to use it."

If you want to set up the perfect vacation rental, start by doing a room-by-room review; think about your ideal guest; guests of varyings ages, even short and tall guests!

Another ‘sorry’ story from Deborah’s travels is one where she was asked to review a vacation rental where the host had not factored in hanging up towels after a shower. So she resorted to hanging them on the back of the bathroom and bedroom doors.

Ok ok, some of us might be guilty of doing this at home, but it’s not acceptable when staying in an Airbnb. At the least, you should install back-of-door pegs and the best?  Definitely, heated towel rails.

Spend time “living” in your vacation rental as a guest would.

Is the kitchen fully stocked with all the items to make a dinner meal or are you missing essential pots, pans and measuring cups? See what you need on our kitchen checklist.

Are the towels in the bathroom spa-like or stained?

Is the couch comfortable to sit on or hard as a rock?

If the essentials of eating, sleeping and bathing are not met, it will be hard for guests to appreciate all of the effort you have put into creating a unique vacation rental experience.

Are the beds hotel-level comfortable or does your back ache after an uncomfortable night’s sleep?  One of the best parts of the guest experience is enjoying a great night’s sleep.

Have you read our Inhaven complete bed and mattress guide?

Check out the competition

Check out similar vacation rentals who receive five star reviews, what do their guests rave about, what do they list in their amenities, and what can you learn from their photos? You don’t have to copy them, learn from them and then put your own unique slant on the guest amenities and comforts in your vacation rental.

Be accessible

Your guests have arrived and they are happy with your pre-stay communication, your great insider tips on the best activities and places to eat, and you feel like it’s a job well done.

Don’t stop there!

There are a myriad of reasons why a guest might want to contact you during their stay, so be accessible and amenable to supporting them. It’s important to be extremely responsive whether it’s to fix an issue or give your guests more great insider recommendations.

The more helpful you are, the better their experience and the positive feedback you’ll receive. More positive reviews will lead to higher occupancy rates.

Don’t be afraid of post-stay feedback

Post-stay feedback might leave us trembling in our boots but it’s essential if we want to continually improve the guest experience.

The best moment to ask for feedback is the day before they leave while they are (hopefully) still enjoying their stay and will be happy to give a review. Once they get home and back into a daily routine, it’s harder to get them to spend time on a review.

If you receive a review which isn’t wholly positive, but is accurate, don’t ignore it. Show empathy, deal with the issue and write back publicly to the guest once it’s resolved.

Guests will appreciate that you have listened and acted, and other potential guests reading your feedback will see that you're a host that cares.

Want more great tips from The Guest INN-spector?

Deborah’s Guest INN-spector gives you mystery guest feedback covering the entire guest experience or journey from touching down on your book direct website or Airbnb listing through pre-stay communication, arrival and the stay itself. 

Do you dare to get in touch? www.theguestinnspector.com