One of the key aspects of being a great host is to be proactive. This means anticipating your guests' needs and ensuring the house is well-equipped with everything they might require. It also involves setting up automatic messages to provide essential information before guests even have to ask. Some guests, particularly those who might not want to trouble the host, appreciate this proactive approach as it addresses their needs without them having to ask. Guests love hosts who think ahead.
Being proactive also pairs well with transparency. If there's a problem or an unexpected issue with the property, don’t wait for the guest to discover it and complain. Instead, inform them in advance, explain the situation, and offer to help them contact Airbnb to arrange alternative accommodation if needed. This approach empowers guests to make their own decisions. Even if they choose to stay, they’ll appreciate knowing they have control over the situation, which is much better than discovering the issue later and feeling helpless.
I remember one occasion when we hosted a wonderful elderly couple who were full of energy and curiosity. They contacted us late at night, just a day before their checkout and flight home, to tell us they had lost their wallet, including their driver’s license and credit cards. They weren’t even sure where they had misplaced it.
As hosts, we are often the only local connection our guests have, especially when they don't speak the local language, as was the case here. Within minutes, we arrived at the house and called Uber and the restaurant where they thought it might have been left. We also searched the house and the garden again, but with no success.
By that time, it was close to midnight. It was dark, windy, and rainy, and the guests didn’t feel comfortable searching for a police station in the Sintra mountains in the middle of the night, where maneuvering through narrow streets and finding parking is difficult even in daylight. My co-host, Soraia, insisted we take them to the police station to file a report. We took them in my car to the station and stayed with them until they had all the necessary information before bringing them back to the house.
The guests were relieved—not just because they received a temporary driver’s license, but because they felt safe and supported in a foreign country. Interestingly, a couple of days later, the next guests who stayed with us found the wallet somewhere in the garden. It was a nice gesture for them to report it to us immediately. We quickly took the wallet and sent it to the previous guests at their home address abroad.
A month later, we received a postcard from them. We’ll never forget walking with them through that stormy night in Sintra, and they won’t either.
We’ve decided to frame this postcard and plan to ask other guests to send us postcards from around the world when they return home. The romantic charm of postcards fits perfectly with our charming urban farmhouse.
