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Rolf and Muddy,
Time will tell whether this is a good idea or not. 50 years experience in short term accommodation rental gives me confidence that this facility will not be abused. In Australia you do not have to worry about guns and I think drugs are extremely unlikely. Because it is not practical for us to supply linen we are always looking for little ways to make our accommodation special and things convenient for guests in other ways. The guest confirmation we send to guests which we insist they have received and read includes a link to our webpage explaining how to use the self storage facility and how to use it.
I was picturing a small outbuilding, which would be what I think of as a “self-storage facility”. I missed that it was a metal box.
But even if the gate to it is on the other side of the house to the entrance and driveway, I would think that guests might be weirded out to see some total stranger coming on the property, and guests renting an entire house are expecting privacy.
It’s also against Airbnb policy.
" What we don’t allow
Physical intrusions: Hosts and guests must not access or attempt to access private spaces unless they have permission or there is an emergency.
In entire-home stays, this applies to the listing itself and its property."
So if new guests haven’t checked in, no problem with the other guests coming back to pick up their luggage, but if you have new guests already in residence, it would be against Airbnb policy.
As they come to you by car, can’t they simply put their luggage in the boot? (Trunk in American).
We move around a lot when we’re travelling and it’s never a problem just to leave the luggage in the car.
At one time, I believed that there was no storage facility nearby. I just assumed. But looking around for a while I found that a local hotel will take in luggage from non-residents, as will the local UPS store. And it’s only a few dollars.
Yeah, I didn’t really understand that part either. Almost all my guests arrive by bus, and there is no storage facility in my town, so it’s reasonable that guests might like to leave their luggage until it’s time for them to leave town.
Although I avoid all that by having one night prep time between bookings and
my check-out window is until 4pm. I don’t even care if they check out later than that if I don’t have another guest checking in the following morning, necessitating me getting on to clean.
Joquo,
Our holiday house is in a small town the closest to a ski resort. Our peak season is July and August where we have almost 100% occupancy, With a 9 week peak season there is no possibility for prep days. Our cleaners clean multiple properties, mostly they clean our place first but sometimes they cannot get there until the afternoon. Our checkout must be 10:00 sharp, in case the cleaners can come early. The cleaners guarantee to have the house ready by 4 pm, but we let guests check-in from noon if the house has been cleaned in time. Our winter guests have a lot of gear, skis, snowboards, boots, helmets, goggles, multiple gloves, packs, food, bulky jackets. Also snow resorts in Australia charge a resort entry ($64 per vehicle per day) so it pays to cram as many people into a car as possible. Snow in Australia tends to be wet and it is not uncommon for the snow to be turning to rain when the guests get back to the car park at a lower elevation. So when you have finished snow sports for the day to have to re-pack the car to fit all the people and all the luggage into the car while it is raining and your clothes and gear is wet can be unpleasant and inconvenient. The less luggage you take up the mountain for the day the easier it is when you get back to the carpark, especially when it is wet. When our family is there we reserve an extra night, but guests are not going to pay $600 for an extra night just so they can store their luggage. There are no hotels or UPS store in the small town, but we do tell guests where to find, public toilets, public showers, change room and undercover area, when they get back to town from the mountain. We have had a couple of weeks so far this winter and I see no evidence the storage box has been used. I think that it will be mostly regular return guests that would use it. They will see it when there and plan to use it next season. My objective is to encourage repeat direct bookings. Time will tell whether it is an appreciated facility for guests… But at $500 for the site box it is worth a try.
Muddy,
After 50 years going short term rental I think I have a good handle on my guests. I think there is buckley’s chance any guests would complain about previous guests using the off-side gate to collect their luggage. It is no surprise to guests they are all informed about this facility in their confirmation. I strongly doubt that the aim of the Airbnb rule to stop hosts from offering a convenience such as I am providing to guests. However in the end I am running this business not Chesky, who has never been to our town, and I have been operating there since before he was born. So with my extensive local knowledge I should make reasonable decisions in servicing the needs of all of my guests only a declining proportion of whom are from Airbnb. Common sense and local knowledge needs to prevail.
I totally understand. I get great guests, too, who wouldn’t be type to complain about that. They don’t actually complain about anything, they are very appreciative.
It’s just good to be aware of Airbnb policies in case you ever get one of those scammer guests who try to come up with complaints to get refunds.
But I don’t anticipate getting those types, and you probably wouldn’t either.
You handled the situation with professionalism and flexibility. When it comes to including this in your review, it’s important to strike a balance between being informative for future hosts and fair to the guest. Here’s how you might approach it:
Highlight Positive Aspects First: Mention the aspects of the guest’s stay that were positive. This sets a balanced tone.
Mention the Request in a Neutral Manner: If you choose to include the luggage situation, keep it factual and neutral, without sounding negative or judgmental.
Conclude on a Positive Note: End with a positive comment about the guest to maintain a fair and balanced review. Check out the Airbnb With D Podcast on any podcast platform for hosting tips and tricks.
No it isn’t. Why would a host want to be ‘fair to a guest’? If a guest has behaved in such a way to deserve a review warning other hosts about their bad behaviour, why would we sugar the pill. We wouldn’t.
If a guest’s behaviour is bad enough to warrant their misdemeanours being mentioned in the review, then the chances are that the host wouldn’t want to host them again.
So why sugarcoat their behaviour?
Fairness yes, but what you have written isn’t anything like a good formula for hosts to follow.
The reason I let that bot post through is that I wanted to reiterate to new or potential hosts how incredibly important it is to the Airbnb community to give accurate reviews.
I understand that it often goes against our natures to be brutally honest about people - we are brought up to be polite - but there is absolutely no need to start with something positive, then complain about the guests, then finish on a positive note (which is what the bot’s suggestion is).
Many guests don’t even read the reviews that hosts leave for them and let’s face it, if the guest has been very messy, or caused damage, or been very noisy or whatever their transgressions are, they know full well what they’ve done.
I know I’ve written it several hundred times here (well, it seems like it) but it’s very important that future hosts get a completely accurate picture of the guests they review.
I certainly agree about not sugar-coating and letting other hosts know about poor guest behavior.
But depending on the behavior of the guest, that positive/negative review sandwich strategy isn’t necessarily a terrible idea. It’s actually just an extension of ways to communicate with others in daily life if something they do has been objectionable. People are much less likely to have a defensive reaction (in the case of reviews, that might take the form of a guest asking to have the 5 star review they left rescinded, or sending the host nasty messages) if you can express your displeasure without them feeling like they are being unfairly attacked, and if you also mention something you appreciate about them.
There are guests who may have been difficult to communicate with, for instance, never responding to messages, not giving an ETA or arriving hours later without letting the host know they’ve been delayed, checked out late, but were quiet, and left the place clean. A host may be so triggered and upset by some aspect of the guest’s behavior that they neglect to mention any positives about them when writing the review.
But of course one shouldn’t just make up something positive if it isn’t true.
Another way to state negative guest behavior in reviews or responses so you don’t come across as attacking someone is to use “I” statements.
A potential future guest who may read your reviews of other guests or a host’s response to a bad review will have a different reaction to a host saying “These guests were total pigs and left a huge mess behind” as opposed to “We felt very disrespected by the state these guests left the house in”.
And the bad guests can’t really object to you simply stating your own feelings.
