@jaquo do you think my communication was clear enough about the lack of restaurants in the area ? Since this is comin up again so soon after the other guests I just wonder if I’m miscommunicating …
Maybe you should make things more clear. You write you would suggest this or recommend that…
I had the same thing some weeks ago: Guests arriving late and having language problems.
I simply told them how it was: “You will be not allowed to use the kitchen and there are no restaurants.” First I thought it sounds rude but the guests had no problems with it at all.
Never Trust Automatic Translations. They are not particularly accurate, often not grammatically correct, and frequently misleading.
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Oh dear. As we know, guests don’t read and those who don’t read English are even worse!
It sounds like you are firm, but Ken has a point. Be VERY firm and use simple language for those who don’t speak English! Put it in your directions to your house as well as in your house rules and put it in every correspondence you have.
NO restaurants available in my neighborhood. Kitchen use is not allowed. Food is NOT provided. Please make sure you have eaten before arrival. If you need to travel into Central London to eat and don’t have a subway card, it’s a 30 £ cab ride. PLEASE PLAN ACCORDINGLY.
I also wonder why your check in time is so late. Can’t you cut it off at say 6pm?
You should not have to spend a dime of your organic budget to feed these clods.
Where are they from?
You need to review those Christmas guests! Find out the last second you have to review and drop it on them like a rock.
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Also, of course, it doesn’t always work to hit them over the head with instructions. Even though I state I’m not near restaurants or markets, and to please plan accordingly, I often have them arrive and ask where they can eat.
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Yes I can see that’s possible when you send a wall of text and ask them read it in advance. This however was part of a conversation in which he responded that he wasn’t interested in stopping to eat… only to turn up and ask where a restaurant is. Frustrating but I think all I can do is not accept a guest’s failure to plan as my problem. Ever worried about difficulties leading to bad reviews though …
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No matter what you try some people won’t listen. I’d have just given them the sad news that there was no food and let them figure it out. It would be hard to charge them for food. If you arrive a t a hotel with no restaurants, they don’t give you their packed lunch.
I have 175 reviews. Four 4 star, one 3 star. Of those one 4 star is from an Italian couple. Their first question on arrival was asking if the “apartment” had a kitchen. Despite having my listing as private room, not entire place and kitchen not listed as an amenity, they were quite insistent. In the face of their demands I told them they could use my kitchen after my friend and I finished dinner. So after about a 40 minute wait the kitchen was theirs and he and I went out to the back patio to visit. Another four star is from the fellow who showed up for the reservation that his wife had made. Just telling him that was irregular and I need to know the name of the person staying got me knocked down a star.
A four star review here and there has no effect on me but I think anytime you confront a guest with information they don’t want to hear you risk a “bad” review.
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Yep exactly @KKC.
I’ve changed my cancellation policy to moderate and I think I will start following instant books with a reminder of what is on offer. At least then they can cancel with no penalty and I can find the right guests.
I’ve been experimenting with moderate cancellation since December… so far one cancellation which was replaced by a booking, so no skin off my nose. Yet.
I’ve just had another review saying the room was tiny. Yes. Therefore the room was as advertised ! And the guests in at the moment complained the flat was small. Yes. Again as advertised. And all these become minuses and reasons to mark me down.
Really it’s rather stressful. Really I’d forgotten how hard this job is 
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I don’t think you’re miscommunicating. I think that many people trust their own past experience (without understanding that they were in a different country) more than they trust what they are being told. In Los Angeles restaurants close early, usually around 10:00 P.M. I tell guests that, but they don’t seem to believe me until we check every local restaurant website and I show them the closing time. I had the same problem that you had on Christmas except it was on Thanksgiving. I had a German couple here who spoke fluent English. The went out on Thanksgiving. I told them that no restaurants would be open. They didn’t believe me. They kept saying, “What about takeaway.” I don’t really know what takeaway is, but I know that you need to buy food the day before Thanksgiving and cook it yourself. I spent quite a while on the phone calling restaurants for them until I found a Chinese restaurant that was open.
As you’ve been repeatedly frustrated with guests eating or eating large quantities of your expensive organic food, you might consider buying some snacks that cost less.
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Yes though I’m going to be honest I struggle with giving people things I wouldn’t eat myself. The guests get everything I do, the same brand of bedding, same brand of towels, the same food. But I’m going to have to rethink this philosophy, or explain it in my listing and raise the price.
Thanks for confirming I’m not crazy @EllenN. I thought the whole point of this was living with a local. So why not trust the local when they share their local knowledge? I know I would listen to a host if they made me aware of a particular situation.
Zandra you sound incredibly hospitable, so maybe this isnt in your nature, but what about just doing nothing?
You told them to eat beforehand, you explained why - and they deliberately ignored you. You don’t have any responsibility to feed them
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Yes. I see people’s faces when I confirm that no there are no restaurants open and then they say (on both occasions) oh well we won’t eat I guess while making puppy dog eyes and I find it difficult to be hard.
I’ve spent the day telling myself it’s not my responsibility and it’s not my fault. and then I changed my listing so the latest you can check is in 8pm :). @KenH called that one right …
Hi @Zandra,
Maybe don’t book people who seem to be having difficulties communicating. I doubt I would accept someone who didn’t speak English. I could probably cope with someone who spoke Hindi, but I wouldn’t enjoy it. Unless you are using IB, in which case it would be a tad difficult unless you have long-distance telepathic powers. You’d have to borrow Cerebro from Prof. X.
So you’re in London? Based on my increasingly hazy memories of the UK, London is one of the more expensive places on the planet to buy food.
I’ve had this problem. It’s not a language barrier. It’s people being unable to believe that things are done differently in other places even when they clearly understand the words they are being told.
You know, like the Brits being unable to cope with Americans not having electric kettles even though we tell them that it’s the norm here.
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Point taken. But if they were really communicating via Google Translate, it didn’t exactly help things. It can be difficult enough to communicate with people who speak the same language.
I’m from London yes.
you can spend as much as you want on food. Boots sell chicken or egg sandwiches for £1. You can get a hot meal for about £6. But not anywhere near the prices to be had in India and it’s hard to get fresh produce from anywhere other than a supermarket which I also prefer to avoid. I get a weekly veg and fruit delivery from a local farm. I walk 40 minutes to buy bread because I hate the supermarket stuff. Now I’m not working I think I’ll go back to baking my own.
And I’m on instant book.
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In this instance google translate was terrible. A lot of his messages were totally nonsensical. It’s possible he didn’t understand but he did reply to my suggestion to eat and check in at 11 with no we will come straight to yours, don’t worry about food. I thought that meant they’d pop into somewhere to buy a sandwich and some crisps before making their way over. I didn’t anticipate that they would actively say no and then turn up expecting a restaurant to be open.
The Italians eat very late. Maybe it’s just a culture clash, and in that case @EllenN has called it accurately.
Once you have established your latest check-in time and come up with a clearer communication about ‘no kitchen use, no restaurants open’, the only thing left to address might be what to do about the guests like your last one. They arrived hungry and with no options for a meal. Like you, most of us would find it hard to ignore someone in that situation and yet, it is not fair to have to absorb the cost of feeding them.
A possible solution might be to have a small selection of non-perishable items set aside in the corner of your cupboard to offer in such situations…for a set price.
For instance, option No. 1 is: Two packets of an instant chicken or tomato soup mix (i.e., Cup-a-Soup, or similar), a sleeve of plain crackers, peanut butter and honey for two. It makes for a satisfying late night snack and would quell the hunger pangs.
Snack option No. 2: (come up with something that also doesn’t create cooking smells.)
The charge for each late night snack-pack – double the cost of what you paid! If the guest chooses to purchase, you will make extra money; if not, it is off your conscience that they go to bed hungry.
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Hi @Zandra,
Food is exceptionally cheap here, particularly vegetables, which cost next to nothing. Fruit is noticeably more expensive for some reason. As is meat, which is much less surprising, of course. Though meat choices here are much more limited than in the West. Plus our beloved Prime Minister made selling beef in Maharashtra illegal.
Our daily grocery bill hovers around Rs 1000, approximately USD 15. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. And if we went all-vegetarian and omitted “unnecessary” extravagances, it could be much less.
So offering guests food is not a big deal.
We don’t have a good bakery near here. There might be one somewhere in the city. But in general, finding good bread here seems difficult.
I’ve spent approximately 2 weeks of my life in London. Since I was on vacation, it seemed like a cool fun place. But I wouldn’t want to live there. But really, for someone like me, South England is Tourist Paradise. I could happily spend a few weeks just visiting literary sights. Though it would be nice to have some like-minded company.
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