Traveling to a new city can be a stressful, yet pretty exciting experience. As you may know, if you read a little bit about me, I love getting to know new places and cultures. Thus, traveling to an unknown destination thrills me. However, things can get compliqué… flight delays, lost luggage, and many other nightmares.
On my recent trip to Barcelona, Spain, a city I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time (mainly because of Barca FC, and Messi), I booked an Airbnb, Vale Apartments, for me and my family of 10. Oh, was it hard to find a place to meet all of our needs: enough bathrooms and bedrooms for all, and common space for all to enjoy. We found it, right in the center of Barcelona, at walking distance to many of the main attractions.
But as you may imagine, not everything went according to the plan. Our flight was delayed for 6 hours!
We ended up arriving at our Airbnb past midnight. We were supposed to meet our host in person, but given the circumstances, this was not possible. However, I was able to email our *super*host to let her know of our situation and received a prompt response with detailed instructions on how to enter the apartment.
The lesson: hosts should always have a plan B, communicate, and be prepared for a change in course. As hosts, we might think we got everything figured out until something goes South. Haven’t our host had a plan B for letting us in, she would’ve had a hard time meeting us at a very inconvenient time. Meeting in person is not always possible, that’s why having a template of detailed instructions ready for your guests on how to check-in, enter the apartment, check out, among other specific actions you may want them to take, can save you time and hassle.
Given the time we arrived and the long flight hours, we were tired and trying to figure out how things worked was taking us forever – hey, our brains were very sleepy! But I remembered seeing an email from our host earlier that day, so I went on my inbox and there it was: the check-in instructions and detailed information of where everything was and how everything worked. Yay! This is what every host should provide to their guest, leaving very little to be asked for.
Think about this: spending some time creating templates now will free you from numerous emails, calls, and texts from your guests later. That’s why we’ve compiled a set of templates for messaging your guests that will help you become a more efficient host and enjoy additional free time to rest, shop, read a book, or whatever you feel like doing.
Grab them here!
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Happy hosting!