Howdy folks! It’s ideas time!
My wife and I have identified a risk that is oh so very likely to materialise tomorrow morning. We would very much like some advice, ideas, thoughts... and luck.
You see, we (in our inexperience) did not have gaps or preparation days in our early days with Airbnb. We turned this feature on almost immediately after we realised not even break-neck speed could manage a same day turnover to our required standard... so we relaxed our bookings and added a preparation day before and after each new booking.
Tomorrow is the very last of the “same day turnover” collisions we inherited from our initial settings and we will be glad when it is behind us.
But there is a problem...
We have discovered that our current guests (lets call them “Team Hangover”) are 2 delightful, beer loving Kiwi blokes who are staying overnight to attend an Eminem concert this evening. They arrived at 2am this morning and (based on our covert Facebook research) tonight we expect they will be back late, rat 4rsed drunk and in the morning likely hungover...
After Team Hangover checks out, we have a mad rush to prepare our place for guests staying for 2.5 weeks! These incoming long term guests (lets call them “Team Dubai”) are Super-hosts from Dubai. Naturally, we want to present our place very well for them, at our highest standard... but they arrive at 1PM and our quickest turnover time is 4 hours (with just me). It’s a big space and lots to do... with 2 of us we should be able to get it done in 2 hours but it will be a real push if Team Hangover have left a mess... which is possible. We have also discovered they are smokers... it takes time to air the room from smokers, even if they don’t smoke inside. It “clings” and last time we had smokers it took a full day to de-stink the place, including a chlorine wipe down.
Our success tomorrow morning all hinges on our ability to get Team Hangover out on time at 10AM. If they are late, or sleep in... the whole system will fall down and we will have an unhappy Team Dubai.
So far I’m thinking we will head down tonight and mention somehow that they can’t be late in the morning.... but.... I’m not entirely sure how to say it casually enough. I’ve thought of the old “mow the lawn at 9AM tomorrow morning” trick... but it’s rather a last resort. We have also tried asking Team Dubai to not checkin until 3PM but it’s unclear if they will show up early. It sounds like they are checking out of their other accomodation in the morning and wanted to come straight over! Not good... we’ll still be cleaning....
Help me experienced hosts! What else can we do to avoid a potential disaster?
~ Ben