Welcome guest basket ideas

[Luke73]

Dear everyone,

“Welcome guest basket" is one of the great ways to make guests “Wow". Not only that, it shows your hospitality, caring, and thoughtfulness.

To stand from the crowd, when creating our welcome guest basket, we decide to deliver all of the messages through POEM. You can check out our listing and view photos to see pictures of our welcome guest basket: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/19645805

Here is some of the ideas about welcome guest basket:

[Judy29]

I agree with you whole heartedlly.  As the guests are staying in a small but complete house, I try to make sure there is everything they need whether one night or weeks at a time.  The more you put out for guests, the more they take.  I find that the large bottles of body soap, shampoo, etc will never disappear.  But I do give my guests full sized bars of "ivory soap".  Guests like that there is something substantial to hold onto while showering...instead of tiny little soaps.

[Farah1]

@Huma0 based on the financial report that I make for all of my listings, the # of 1-night stay is significantly more than other # of days. For my situation, I do not think it is a wise decision to change the min.stay. Yes, it can be challenging sometimes... especially if all 3 listings check-in and out at the same time = laundry party time.

I think I can consider giving a welcome basket for guests who stay longer and depending on the price that I charge for the reservation because I always update my prices.

I like the blackboard idea, I am planning to get one 🙂

[Huma0]

@Farah1 I totally understand if that is the bulk of your bookings, it makes sense for you to keep doing one night stays, although I am not sure how you manage 3 x check in and check outs on one day! That would be too much for me.

RE the toiletries, I also started putting full sized ones for guests in the bathrooms, which means not many of them use the travel sized ones I leave in the room, so I continue to do that as it's nice to give them the option, but I don't actually have to go through too many of them.

[Luke73]

@Farah1 We are doing it for any guest because we only have one listing now. It doesn't take us a lot of time because Luke Jackson is a full time host. If we start having more listings, probably we will do the welcome basket for guests who stay longer than 1 night 🙂

[Farah1]

Thanks for your feedback @Luke73. For me, I think it is not about the time to prepare it. It's more about the cost efficiency for everything 😄

[Judy29]

Farah:  I dont waste my time or money on guests anymore.  I have become very ruthless and frugil after 27 years.  No matter how accommodating I am, especially lately, I find that the guests are becoming too critical and undeserving of the extra little things that I refuse to hand out!  Guests will help themselves to anything they can remove whithout you watching and think it is OK and their permission to do so.

[Sharon683]

I have never had that problem. 

[Kevin2]

I think it would be too costly to provide for your 1 nighter guests.  Instead you can leave a bottle of wine or champagne with 2 glasses with a handwritten welcome note. 

[Karen-and-Brian0]

@Luke73 Your baskets are so much nicer than mine! I love them. We've always provided a gift box for guests & most guests really appreciate them I think (a few guests don't mention them at all &/or don't use much if anything, in them). I got the idea after attending a destination wedding - the bride & groom had supplied gable boxes for each hotel room, I thought it was such a nice touch! Most of our summer guests are here to do some hiking in the mountain parks etc. so, I usually put in a small size sunscreen, insect repellant, lip balm, bottles of water, chocolate, granola bars etc. Winter guests get hot chocolate mix, cookies, mints etc. I get dog treat samples in the mail all the time from Bark Box, so if they bring their dog, the dog gets one of those in the gift box. I try to individualize them as much as possible for each set of guests. It's fun & gives me something to focus on other than all the cleaning & laundry I have to do 😄 - Karen

[Luke73]

@Karen-and-Brian0 Thanks and yours looks very cute 

[Dev4]

@Luke73@Karen-and-Brian0

Both your gift baskets look amazing.

When I first started hosting, I stacked up the kitchen with granola bars, Chocolates, water bottles, fresh fruits and many things. i monitored it for a month or so and none of the guests would touch a thing. It was very annoying because I had to regularly throw the fruits and get fresh. Gradually, I stopped providing it. 

In your experience, you do find that guests love the "gift basket"? 

[Karen-and-Brian0]

Hi @Dev4 I would say the majority really like & appreciate them. We don't live on our property, and before we got the security camera and remote access wifi, we had no way of knowing if they had arrived or not, but most contacted us right away to say thanks for the gift box.  I guess it's a good way to get our guests to let us know when they arrive if nothing else! Most guests take everything that's in it ; some guests take at least a few of the things. I've never had guests who haven't eaten the food items - cookies, chocolates or granola bars. Things not used as often are the sunscreen & insect repellant - but they leave them unopened so I can just keep them for the next gift box. The few guests we've had who haven't mentioned them at all have taken everything in them anyway, so I guess they liked them. 

It's such a shame you had all those wonderful treats for your guests & they weren't eating them! Maybe they weren't sure they were meant for them? People are surprising in that they aren't terribly intuitive sometimes*. I guess a gift box works because their names are written on it so there's no guesswork involved. 🙂

* we had a guest who thought our bird/squirrel feeder tray (that's nailed to the top deck railing) was an ash tray & used it as such, even though there is a sand bucket and ashtray near the door with a big "Plant your butts here!" sign. Our squirrels were not impressed. LOL

Karen

[Huma0]

I've had guests who thought that the fruit bowls, or even the water carafes/glasses were 'for decoration' so didn't touch them. I guess a note saying 'help yourself' might have done the trick, but I had thought it was obvious!

I do host private rooms in my own home, so I think it's absolutely right that guests do not just help themselves to whatever they see. In fact, they are specifically told not to do this and shown what is for their use in the kitchen (another thread running on the CC at the moment RE guests who ignore this). 

I'm talking about items left for them in their rooms, so I thought that should be obvious, but that's not always the case. Weirdly, guests seem to be more likely to help themselves to other people's things in the communal areas than to the things specifically left for them in their rooms. 

[Melanie1063]

Exactly our experience. Worse, they open the new package of $20 Kona Coffee and don’t use it. Leave all the fixings for Mai Tai drinks and maybe one out out of 4 guests use it. It’s a guessing game and we’ve given up leaving gift baskets and work more on having the house fully stocked for their stay

[Huma0]

@Melanie1063 

Yes, the guests opening things just for the sake of it seems weird to me. I absolutely do not mind them opening things that are specifically left for them if it's something the next guests can use. The coffee can go in an airtight canister. It doesn't need to be in a brand new, unopened packet.

However, guests who raid my own personal food opening every jar and packet for the sake of it, really annoy me!