How do I check guests in without being there?
Short answer: With one arrival page per house, sent by itself a few days before: the way there with photos of the last few turns, where to park, where the key is and its code, and the Wi-Fi. If the page is in the guest's language and opens on a phone with no app, hardly anyone needs to ring you.
The problem is not the key. It is the way there.
In Madeira, the satnav often gets the guest to the right street and leaves them there, on a narrow lane, unsure which house it is. The call comes when they are tired from the journey, sometimes after dark. Most arrival calls are about the last hundred metres.
What the arrival page should have
- A pin on the map at the front door, not just the address.
- Three or four photos of the end of the journey: the last turn, the gate, the door.
- Where to park, and where not to.
- Where the key box is, with a photo, and the code.
- The Wi-Fi, how the hot water and the bins work, and the check-out time.
- A number for emergencies, and what counts as one.
When and how to send it
Send it a few days before arrival, so the guest can save it, and again on the morning of the day. If you send it by hand, one day you will forget, or send the code for the wrong house. Ideally the message goes out by itself from the booking, with the link for the right house and in the language of whoever booked.
A page on the phone beats a PDF or a long message in the chat. It opens with nothing to download, the photos are easy to see, and if you change the code you change it in one place.
What the platforms already do
Airbnb has an arrival guide in the listing, and several holiday-let management programs send instructions before arrival. If you only let through Airbnb and have one house, start there. Your own page makes sense when bookings come from several places, your own site included, and you want every guest to get the same thing without you copying anything across.
What to do this week
- Drive to the house as if you were a guest and take photos of the last few turns and the door.
- Note the questions from your last few arrival calls. Each one is a line on the page.
- Ask someone who has never been there to arrive using only your instructions, and see where they get lost.
Written by The W2 Collective team, in Santa Cruz, Madeira.
