Ensure a smooth arrival for your guests!
The period before going on holiday plays a very important role in the end experience of tourists. After all, the starting gun isn’t fired when your guests arrive at your holiday accommodation and you hand the keys over to them. Nobody could deny that as holidaymakers our imaginations start to fly long before we get round to packing our suitcases. And dreaming about new destinations and planning new adventures makes the time to our next holiday pass by more quickly. The search for accommodation, choosing a destination and weighing up the various options available on the market are all part of the holiday experience.
That’s why it’s important to take care over the tiniest details — so you can be sure that the booking process and the directions to your holiday home are as complete and as clearly stated as possible. If a client has chosen your rental property from the increasing range of holiday accommodation on offer, then it won’t do to let them down. You have an obligation to give them a unique experience from the very first moment, and it’s here where preparations made before they arrive at your property will make a difference.
At Muchosol we’ve compiled a list of key points that every owner should bear in mind if they want to ensure a smooth arrival for their guests. It’s a set of tips with clearly defined goals: to anticipate holidaymakers’ needs, to collect the basic information for all the necessary documentation and, above all, to ensure that everything is in place to meet the demands of any tourist. Your aim should be to help your guests get off to a good start at one of the most eagerly anticipated times of the year. So, let’s begin!
A fast check-in service
Who doesn’t breath a sigh of relief when they receive an e-mail with the receipt for their booking confirmation attached? It means decisions over the holiday have finally been settled and it’s now just a matter of waiting… However, you should be aware that the end of the booking process only marks the beginning of the groundwork that holidaymakers have to carry out before they arrive at their accommodation. And this is where the relationship between the owner and their clients should flow as smoothly as possible and ensure that the check-in procedure and the handover of keys are plain sailing.
The onus is always on the owner to get clients into their holiday accommodation in as fast a time as possible. One thing you can do is to send your clients an e-mail 10 days before they arrive, advising them that they can speed up the check-in process by paying 3 days before their arrival. Clients should be aware of the various payment methods with which they can settle any outstanding balance (TPV, PayPal or bank transfer). You should always remind them to send you the payment receipt, too.
And if you can refresh their memory by including a list of all the required documentation in the same e-mail, then so much the better. One such example is the rental agreement. You should specify whether it needs to be signed and sent back by e-mail or if a printed copy will be provided on arrival at the holiday property. Owners should also list all the scanned documents they need for processing any relevant documentation. These may include the passports or national identity cards of all the guests, for example.
Reminders
It’s not possible to come up with a prototype of a typical tourist because no two holidays are ever the same. Every client is different, and each one requires personalised attention to make them feel at home. Hence, the importance of sending those e-mail reminders and finding out the services that each group of holidaymakers are going to need: cots, bed linen, sheets, items for pets, etc. If you have prior knowledge of the preferences of each group of guests, it will make your work as an owner that much easier when it comes to preparing your rental home for their arrival. Improvisation is not a valid tool when you’re dealing with people’s holidays.
Include maps
A means of finding your holiday rental property is an absolutely indispensable requirement that no booking documentation should be without. It’s therefore essential to include as full and as precise an address as possible — and a map too — so that your guests know exactly where your holiday home is. And it’s especially important to indicate how far it is to local amenities and places of interest: beaches, supermarkets, public transport stops and stations, the historic centre of town, museums, etc.
You can also add a short description of the various methods of transport that your guests can use to get to the town or city where your property is located. And if you can calculate the approximate journey times as well, you’ll certainly be providing your clients with some very valuable information as they complete their final holiday preparations and get ready to pack their suitcases.
A guide to the region
Nowadays, people can find their way around any town or city using their mobile phones, and tourists generally travel with a clear idea of what they’re going to see once they reach their holiday destination. Even so, everyone still likes to have a paper map that they can carry around with them and that may come to their rescue on one or more occasions. A summary of the main places of interest and a brief description of each — together with relevant information such as opening times, prices and how to get there — can be extremely useful to your guests and is a great way to welcome them.
What starts well ends well, so by taking care over the smallest details before your guests arrive, you’ll be smoothing the way towards a perfect holiday experience. If you manage to complete the main administrative procedures well enough in advance, and are able to send most of the documentation in digital format, then the check-in process will cease to be a bothersome affair involving lots of paperwork.
And if your clients are happy with the attention they receive before their holidays have begun, they’ll enjoy their stay even more and become your greatest ambassadors. So what are you waiting for? Take these tips on board now and start to get more out of your holiday rental home.