Do you leave welcome baskets/ gifts for arriving guests? If so a brief why you leave gifts as you feel it promotes what? what might be some nice gifts to leave and what’s the dollar amount would you suggest.
Cheers
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We’ve never left welcome baskets or gifts for guests.
We home-share, so we always meet our guests. We have a fridge full of beverages (no alcohol), yogurt, and smoothies, as well as a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter. We point those things out to guests. If we have freshly baked cookies or brownies, we’ll offer a few to the guests.
I always leave a welcome basket. I have a whole house rental for 6 people with a 5 night min. I include a bottle of wine, cookies, chips, popcorn, wasabi peas, etc. I get the goodies at the dollar store and buy a $7 bottle of wine. The basket costs $15-$20. Guests seem to really aopreciate it. I don’t think I would provide a welcome basket for shorter stays.
Like Rebecca, I’m a homeshare host, so no welcome basket. But when guests arrive, I do offer them a cold drink, or tea or coffee, and I do ask them if they are hungry, as some have had a long journey, and if so, will fix them a snack.
If you do want to provide one, how much you spend on it would of course depend on your nightly prices.
As for what it promotes, basically “underpromise and overdeliver”- guests who are pleasantly surprised by getting something nice they didn’t expect may rate and review higher,and start off their stay in a happy mood, rather than looking for things to find fault with. (So never mention a gift basket in your listing)
Guests tend to appreciate gift basket items that are unique to your area, rather than just things they could get anywhere. You could even approach local businesses who make their own jams, chocolates, etc, to see if they would be interested in giving you a bit of a discount in exchange for featuring their products and putting a section in your onsite manual like “If you enjoyed the jam from XX Farms, you can buy more at their Saturday farm stand on Pleasant Road”.
And things that guests can snack on if they arrive hungry and before they can get to a store are usually appreciated, so not all sweets.
But there is no need to provide a welcome basket if you don’t want to, nor should guests expect such things, although many hosts eventually get some guest who complains that “Well, my last Airbnb…”
Thank you very good suggestions
There was another thread on this forum on this subject. At the last time I viewed it 37% of th Hosts participating in the poll left a welcome basket.
That prompted me to do so too, even though there was ‘stuff’ in the cabinets.
Two of the last three guests complimented us on the treats. I bought from boxed.com
The only thing is that I have to hide these treats in the guest unit because if I can easily get to them I will!
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I had like a six stay stay with six guests, so I splurged on Garrett’s popcorn from Chicago (very good, very expensive). Amazingly, none broke even the seal.
As soon as they left the Host ate it all.
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Presentation counts for a lot, as all marketers know. You could have exactly the same stuff in the cupboard, but if you arrange it nicely in a basket, they’ll consider it “special”.
Yes, even if you provide gift food, apparently some guests won’t avail themselves of it. They could be diabetic and not eat sugar, they might be vegan, or lactose intolerant, they may not drink alcohol, or simply not like what you offered. It’s the thought that counts.
More for us. 
Or as long as it’s not past expiry date, put back out for the next guests.
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REAL Fresh-squeezed orange juice is almost always a hit!
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I would be the exception. You’d find it untouched in the fridge. 
If you went to the supermarket and bought a bunch of boring stuff that was on sale… what’s the thought? I generally dislike welcome baskets unless they contain local produce that is special. I found this to be more common in the USA (although I don’t think my 3 abb experiences in that giant country count for much research), putting out a basket of snacks. In that situation I find it interesting purely because most of the snacks were unknown to me, but in general I don’t eat any of those snack packeted foods…
We get wine at a nice discount from a local winery, and we use them more as apologies if something is awry - or if a guest mentions a birthday or anniversary we leave a bottle in the suite with a note.
We used to supply cookies (very nice brand, individually wrapped) but zero people ever mentioned them so we stopped, and now we just bake and leave some homemade cookies in a jar when we have time.
What I meant by it’s the thought that counts, is that even if you find the guests haven’t eaten any of it, hopefully it still registers as that the host made an extra effort. I did mention above that local stuff that guests wouldn’t find outside of your area is the nicest stuff to put in a welcome basket. You might have a package of crackers in there that you could get in any supermarket, but if there are special local cheeses or jam to put on them, that would be attractive to me if I were a guest.
There’s a veggie paté made on one on the islands near where I lived in Canada that is so good, and I’ve never found anything like it anywhere else. They’ve been making the stuff for about 30 years, and it’s one of the first food items I buy when I go back almost every summer. It’s pricey, though, and one of my friends up there who also loves the stuff experimented until she was able to come up with something that tastes almost identical. Not for sale, just for herself.
My friend who used to host a private suite in her home used to make a plate of dip and cut up fresh veggies and leave it in the guest fridge, along with some healthy cold drinks or a few beers, and a bag of some healthy-type chips. She got a lot of notes left by guests as to how much they appreciated not having to go shopping right away or out to eat when they arrived hungry.
(Yes, I know it’s not advised to offer unpackaged food, in case someone blames you for food poisoning, but she didn’t worry about that- she’s a nurse and well understands safe food handling practices)
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As long as it’s a short stay then the guest gets “the thought” and I get a bottle of still relatively fresh “normally-way-too-expensive-to-be-in-my-fridge fresh squeezed O.J” when they leave
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We have a very low priced home share so don’t do any formal basket. However we do have a good assortment of things that people might forget or need unexpectedly that they can help themselves to such as toothbrushes, razors, sewing stuff, etc. Our breakfast buffet includes some items that double as snacks during the day. Tastes, allergies, dietary needs, etc. have made it hard to please everyone.
Yes, there are other little nice, thoughtful touches that can have the same effect and be just as appreciated as a welcome basket.
I also provide a few “in case you forgot yours” items in the guest bathroom, and even though it costs me nothing but 5 minutes of time walking around my yard clipping flowers and/or pretty foliage, the mini bouquet I leave in the guest bedroom gets mentioned favorably quite a bit.
We used to leave premade gift baskets we’d pick up at home goods or Sam’s Club with all sorts of sweets and savory snacks. I don’t think anyone touched them.
Then we moved on to insulated water bottles and an insulated tote with the resort insignia. Those they actually took. Now we are getting all repeats, so we need to come up with different gifts. I’m browsing the resort insignia store. They seem to like things that remind them of their holiday.
My suite is a more affordable place to stay outside of Boston. Guests usually stay 2-5 days on average.
I have a bin in my kitchenette with different snacks, oodles of noodles and oatmeal along with coffee, teas, hot cocoa and all the fixings. (Dollar store and Costco). I figure I leave out about $10 dollars worth of goodies but 80% of the time, it’s never touched. When it is used, they seem to eat all of the snacks.
I recently had a guest complain that I don’t offer free healthy snacks (except. for the apple sauce). I found when I purchased fresh foods they would often spoil before the guests would use them up.
Our welcome food list is cooking essentials, coffee, cream, eggs, butter, pasta, sauce, pancake mix, syrup and San Pellegrino, which I text them this list the day before, so they know what other supplies to buy. We often get a “Wow, thank you!” from guests on this info and stuff:) our cabinet and refrigerator stock does not usually get even 1/4 used.
Last spring we had a family event and my mil bought huge costco boxes of chips, biscotti and treats which I put in a nice basket for a few guests about 5 at a time. I recall it was ‘cleaned out’ 1x. Then the stock mistakenly was removed back to mil<><> so I don’t really know how this went over from a guests perspective.
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Ahhh memories…
I gave my very first guest a gift basket, with cake, wine, chocolate and all the extras…
How did the guest pay me back?
By throwing a 30+ booze infested party looool…
I’m running a business… Business is there to make money… I am not spending a penny on gift baskets…
My Airbnb properties are enough
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