Guest not answering since initial booking

So, I had a guest book about a week before his arrival date. It was an instant book and all he wrote was “we’re coming”. I asked what he was planning to come to Somerville for and got no response. His profile didn’t say where he was from, but his phone number is from China. So I assumed he didn’t answer me because of a language barrier.
Well, his check in date was March 10th. I sent him the check in details 2 days before and heard nothing back from him. I followed up with him to make sure he received the details and still heard nothing.
Now, it’s March 13th, he’s been in my apartment for 3 days, and he still has not answered me. I sent him a message to see how his stay is going and still nothing. He is there until Thursday the 16th so it worries me a bit.
I’m fairly new to hosting on Airbnb and I haven’t had this issue yet. I don’t know how to handle something like this and I’m not sure if it happens sometimes and if I should just let it go and not worry about it.
Any feedback would help! Thanks!

Give Airbnb a call and ask them if they can reach out to your guest.

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I take it you have self check in? I wouldn’t have sent the actual details about how to check in without hearing something back from the guest.

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Often times travelers have very infrequent access to internet. In rare cases, some people like to be disconnected from the internet as well.

It also sounds like there may be a potential language barrier. I’ve received very short, and sometimes strange, messages. It turned out the folks were super nice and friendly, but their english was not great.

It’s also not uncommon for me to have guests that I don’t see during their stay. The longest of these stays was 3 days for me. I would say that your experience with this guest is certainly out of the norm, but if they aren’t damaging anything or causing problems, just go with the flow :slight_smile:

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This would make me nervous as well. I personally would send a message asking them to acknowledge it. I would also state if I didn’t get a reply within 24 hours I would be going round to check the property. You can’t afford to assume everything is ok.

Hi Cassandra… do you actually know that this person did checkin or do you just presume? Consider driving by at night, assuming you don’t live in the same building, to see if there are lights on… or even send a message in English and then translated into Chinese simplified to let him know you will be stopping by to ensure that the heat is working properly. What is it today– 11º out there with a nor’easter ready to hit tomorrow.

Yes. This is weird and not normal, and I too would be concerned.

I’d certainly be stopping by, announced or unannounced, to see if someone is there, and “introduce myself since you did not respond to my welcoming messages”.

Thank you everyone! So, we went by earlier and the guest never even checked in. Nothing was even touched in the apartment at all.
Weird?? He never canceled the booking so I’m not sure what happened here. It’s a little odd if you ask me.

Enjoy the free money! This happened to me once, but they did let me know two days in advance.

I had a similar non-communication issue with a Chinese guest, although he and family did show up. I think he was able to book from home with the help of an interpreter, but once he was travelling, he wasn’t able to understand my ABB messages. Everything turned out ok, though.

I have many guests from China, 99% are all first time ABB guests and often parents of international students here who have never travelled overseas. They rarely speak English and don’t understand how ABB works at all. ABB is big on pushing their market to the Chinese so are tremendously helpful when I’ve called them to talk to the guests, who say about 2metres from my own bedroom in my home! Call ABB they have heaps of staff who speak Mandarin & Cantonese

Thank you Susan! We can chat more this week! :grin:

I have had guests from England like this. Didn’t respond to any of my messages. Didn’t text at check-in check-out. During stay messaged me one question, after I answered, went silent again. This guest had lots of reviews from other hosts. Looked like a experienced abb user. Sometimes I just don’t understand how people operate.