I have a guest who reserved a few days ago with a one sentence message: “Hi, looking forward to my stay.” He didn’t reply to my message back about sending check in instructions on the day of travel. He didn’t reply to my message with that information yesterday. I had no idea when he was arriving, why he is here, if he would be driving or flying. He arrived in his car, and went in the room. Still hasn’t messaged me. I’m assuming he doesn’t want to be bothered. If I happen to hear him leaving this morning I may pop my head out the front door and ask if everything was okay. But I really don’t get the feeling he is looking for any kind of interaction.
I’ve hosted 50+ guests with a consistent 5 star rating…and only met one of them in person. I agree with everyone here, it varies by your preference & situation. Having a self check-in system, IMO, allows both the host & the guest a great deal of flexibility. If they need me I am certainly available but currently it’s working just fine to let them do their own thing. Maybe I would have more detailed reviews if I met them but I’m still getting 5 stars without the hassle of scheduling a meet & greet. All the details they need are in the house manual.
For hosts doing self-check-in at destinations that require city tax collection in cash, how do you collect the city tax?
Hey @travellinbug I work for a company called KeyNest who help Airbnb hosts offer self check-in by holding and handing over keys to guests. In my experience guests actually prefer self check-in as it means they get more flexibility when checking in. It also helps your listing to become business ready! 
Thanks, Ed.
Our ratings and reviews are very high. we do not offer self check-in and never will, as our place will never be “smart”. In the reviews they mention “warm hosting”, and with pleasure from us that’s what they get. Once they arrive and are introduced to the hideaway, they get a couple of texts and a “come say bye” visit. We are onsite @ Tiny Tiki Retro Hideaway.
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I will be reopening my Airbnb after a major remodel. I was taken back by some comments I received last year on an Airbnb Forum. There were several people who told me they felt it was creepy to have the Airbnb host check them in. For the most part, I would meet my guests because I have a duplex where I live in the upstairs and the Airbnb is downstairs. It is a separate apartment and with it’s own access. So now I am wondering if it’s best to meet the guests or have self check in?
As you can see from this thread there is no “one approach” for every rental. As long as you deliver what is promised, your ratings should be fine. Make it absolutely clear you live there and try to check in every guest. But if you allow late check ins, like at midnight, you may not want to check in everyone. @jaquo has a great approach to this.
I live in the home where I rent a separate suite with it’s own entrance and I almost never greet the guests for check in.
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When I’ve been a guest at an Airbnb, I have never thought, “I wish that after a long road trip, carrying bags and needing to use the bathroom, the host would open the door, cheerily tour me through the Airbnb, and rattle on about where everything is and reiterate the house rules while analyzing my every move and expression to discern my ‘true’ intentions.”
I also never thought, “I wish I had a key that I need to carry around all the time and worry that I might misplace or that might have been duplicated, allowing access to former guests or anyone who finds it,” instead of an easy-to-use smart lock.
s/
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I’ve been hosting for 7 years and have always used a lock box. Never had any complaints. I think most guests appreciate the lock box since arrival times vary for everyone.
I do have a house book with details on how to operate appliances and also a folder with things to do in the area and menus from local restaurants. I also send them a message the day of check in letting them know that if they have any questions, to feel free to contact me. In addition, I leave them my home phone number on the kitchen counter.
I think you will be fine using the lock box.
In my experience no difference . Many guests would rather self check-in
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Oh, for heaven’s sake, I can assure you that this is not the “host greets guests” model.
I’m sure there are some hosts who are overly chatty, who don’t “read” the guests and notice whether they seem tired and just want to be left alone to settle in, but to put forth the notion that what you describe is the norm is ridiculous.
I check in all my guests and I make the orientation of their space as brief as possible- 3 or 4 minutes, max, just pointing out where the light switches are, mentioning that it takes about a minute for the hot water to work its way through the pipes, how their door lock works, etc., leaving them to get settled, shower, nap, or whatever, and tell them when they are ready, to come downstairs and I’ll show them where everything is in the shared kitchen.
I certainly don’t "rattle on about where everything is and reiterate the house rules while analyzing my every move and expression to discern my ‘true’ intentions.”
Nor have any guests expressed any issue with having a physical key. There are lots of places they can hide them outside their room on the balcony if they don’t want to carry them around, and none of my guests live anywhere even slightly local to have any thought of copying them, nor are they the kind of people who would do so.
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Yes, and I do when I’m a guest.
But the meet and greet and the tour is for the benefit of the host and not the guest. I thought that hosts understood this. 
What an old thread this is …
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That’s my husband! I am much better at telling when guests want me to leave them alone, so I can cut the welcome tour down to five minutes when I see the signs. It’s hard to cut it shorter than that - we have a 3-bedroom, 4000-square foot house in the Caribbean with lots of unique aspects that they need to know about.
But a good portion of our guests want to chat with us when they arrive and ask us a lot of questions. We’re happy to oblige!
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When other hosts bang on about how guests prefer self check-in and that other hosts should provide that, I can only assume they haven’t travelled internationally themselves, at least to places where things work much differently than they do where they live.
If I left guests to check in themselves, I think that would lead to some bad reviews and low ratings. There’s no way it would be evident to a guest who had never spent time in Mexico how the door locks here work, and my hand-wrought metal doors wouldn’t lend themselves to mounting a smart lock or keypad on them.
It’s actually much faster for me to simply demonstrate how the lock works, than for a guest to have to stand there reading some written instructions, or watching a video, trying to figure it out while desperately needing to pee.
That’s only one thing about my place that benefits from hands-on in person explanation, there are several more and I imagine your place in St. Lucia is much the same. Guests would likely mark us down if they had to waste their time trying to figure things out that I can easily show them in a matter of minutes.
And yes, I get many guests who actually are happy to sit down with a beverage I’ve offered them and chat, after coming off a long flight and a bus ride. The ones who don’t, I just leave to get settled in their room after the quick orientation.
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Very true. We’ve just returned from a road trip, changing rentals every two or three days. Something I always look for on a road trip is a rental that has laundry facilities. (It makes packing so much easier).
One place, that advertised that there was a washer and drier, didn’t. On the last day we were there, I opened a door in the bedroom that I’d assumed was an owner’s closet.
It lead straight into a garage that had a lovely new washer and drier.
That lovely, helpful, friendly host could have been marked down by me for not having the advertised equipment.
We have closets full (literally) of adventure gear (beach, snorkel, coolers, thermoses, hats, rainjackets, etc.) for our guests. It takes five seconds to open the doors to show them so they can start using them immediately instead of part-way through their stay.
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I’ve also been confronted with ultra-modern washing machines, dishwashers, driers and induction hobs that I’ve had to puzzle out how to operate.
I keep all the manuals to our appliances in a drawer and point them out during the house tour.
With some of the older ones I’ve had to print manuals from the internet.
I can figure out most things but it’s so very helpful to have instructions.
To understand what?
I just checked in a young couple from Turkey (we’re in France). They didn’t speak a word of English (nor any other language I’m able to speak) and it was a blessing to be an on-site host as they literally thought that the fan provided in the living room was to heat up the room (!!!). We set our infrared heating to 23 C° (73 freedom degrees) which never seems to be enough for Turkish folks.
I would have instructed them in-person if we could have communicated in a common language, so I gave them the quick rundown in writing through the Airbnb chat instead with the offer to reach out to us if they run into any issues or have questions.
As a guest, I really don’t understand what the fuss is about checking in with the host being present.
The times we stayed at self check-in places the hosts were not close-by and every single time we had to reach out to the host it took hours for them to get back to us, and that was just to report an issue, I’m not even talking about resolving the problem.
In-person check-ins have given us many positive reviews from guests who were happy to obtain information first hand at the time of arrival regarding public transport, sights or shopping recommendations.
This may vary greatly by the location of the accommodation and the type of guests who generally stay there.
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That the house tour is a huge benefit to the host it that it’s for the host, and not the guest.
As a host, I find that the house tour is necessary.
To start with, it’s what is called in sales parlance ‘consolidating the sale’. The guest has seen the listing and booked and the house tour is a great way for the host to reassure the guest that they made absolutely the right decision by pointing out the advantages.
It gives the host an opportunity to create a relationship with the guest, no matter how vague. I truly believe that’s important.
It’s important to me to point out various aspects of the apartment - ‘this is the thermostat for the AC…’, ‘the manuals for the appliances are here…’, ‘these are the beach towels that you can use…’ Etc.
A host can determine many things about the guest which can ultimately make the guest pleased enough to a) write a great review b) recommend the rental to friends and c) become repeat guests.
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I think of it as for the benefit of both host and guest. It means the guest doesn’t have to waste their time reading through instruction manuals, trying to figure non-evident things out on their own, or root around looking for things.
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