Top 5 Tips - Hosting Indian Guests

[Jeet0]

Hello fellow hosts!

Hope you are doing well 🙂

I'm writing this post to help you welcome and host Indian Guests in the best possible way.

A little bit about myself - I'm a host from India and have hosted more than 100 Indian familes in the last 2 years. I have been a little around the world and stayed at Airbnbs and thus I can understand the differences between hosting styles, guest expectations etc. across different cultures. Below I'd like to mention 5 points to remember while dealing with booking requests and reservations by Indian hosts.

I'd like to mention here that I'm not trying to sterotype Indians and only sharing my personal experience with most Indian guests. I hope you find it useful [Hit the thumbs-up button if you do, and I shall post more tips]. Also note that India is a country of extremely diverse cultures, thus you might not have similar experiences with all guests.

So here we go:

1.  HAVE PATIENCE - Airbnb is still a fairly new concept in India and is growing faster than ever before. Most guests are first time users of the Airbnb platform and aren't very familiar with the concept of Home-sharing. You might encounter some obvious questions like "What's the total price?", "Can you provide your contact number?", "Would we have the entire place to ourselves?" etc. although these answers are present on your listing, please try to be patient in ansering these questions. Remember that these are people who haven't used online payments as much as you and are sceptical about it as it's their first time. Airbnb is yet to establish a strong user trust in India as conventional hotels still dominate the market however people are quickly realizing the benefits of staying at an Airbnb and are willing to try out. So be a little patient, helpful and supportive in your approach.
   
   
2. NEGOTIATION IS COMMON - Negotiating before renting any service or purchasing any commodity is a common practice in India. It's a necessary skill that most posses and use quite frequestly so in case someone tried to negotiate with you by asking to give a Special Discount Offer or offer Free Meals or Airport Transport, don't be surprised or upset. It is not considered as bad practice and guests might sometimes appear to be a little more pushy/demanding. If you aren't okay with this, try explaining the same politely if you are successful, the guests would be convinced that you aren't overpricing and would readily book. Give them context about the normal rate in your surrounding, add details about some of the extra facilites that you provide and why your costing is appropriate.
   
   
3. GREETINGS AREN'T COMMON - In a country of 1.33 Billion individuals, it isn't possible to smile and wish "Good moring", "Good day" to every person you see on the street, Or pull the door at stores for other customers. So in case your guests don't greet you everyday in the morning or when you see them, please do not confuse this as rude behaviour. We are just not used to pleasantries, however you could initiate this and I'm sure your guests would reciprocate with a lovely smile and greet you back.
   
   
4. CLEARLY ESTABLISH THAT THIS IS YOUR HOME AND NOT A HOTEL - As mentioned in point 1, most guests are quite new to the concept of Airbnb and so it is important that you firmly yet politely establish prior to booking that your are opening the doors to your home which is your personal space to a complete stranger and it is absolutely necessary necesssary that guests follow the house rules and treat your home with respect and care. Use the word "Home" insead of "Property", "Listing" during your communication to emphasize the same. Once guests understand this well, they'll be more thoughtful about how that treat your home.
   
   
5. KITCHEN HABITS - In case you are allowing your guests to use your Kitchen, make sure that when you are giving them a house tour, you explain in detail what they can use and what they should not. Use sticky notes to mark cabinets which have stuff that's for guests to consume/use. Note that Indian/Asian food uses plenty of spices and flavours, so if your guests are cooking, it's quite possible that you might be exposed to strong aromas/smells which you haven't experienced before. If you aren't going to be okay with this, talk about it in adavance and arrive at an agreement. Another important point to note is that most Indians who can afford to travel oversee also can afford to have maids at their homes and thus might not be used to washing the dishes after use or might have never used a dishwasher. Ensure that you have this conversation in advance and explain that guests are expected to clean the dishes and the kitchen after use. I'm certain they'd be happy to do so.

There's much more to learn but I shall stop here. Indians are mostly very humble and caring folks and are known for their hospitality  and if you communicate well, you might end up making friends for life. Always over-communicate so that there's minimal scope for confusion later. If you have ever hosted Indian guests, feel free to share your experiences below 🙂

Thanks,

Jeet

[Andrew157]

Sorry you feel the need to sterotype your countrymen in this way. I find that I can relate to people from all over the world by taking them as I find them. I would rather build bridges than walls - are you listening Mr President.

We welcomed a couple from Saudia Arabia a few months ago. They were new in the UK and mistakenly belived that it would take 4.5 hours to get to out place. It took them 9, they arrived after dark and had never driven on single track roads with passing places. I welcomed them to the apartment  as usual and they asked about food. I said I could take them to Windermere and they could go to the supermarket or they could see if any restaurants were open. As it was late there were only lakeland pubs open. I offered to sit with them in the pub and not drink. They asked how can you go to a pub and not drink. My response was easily and often as I don't ever drink and drive. 

My point is that not all Brits are drunks not all Saudis are Bin Laden and not all Indians are as you say

[Jeet0]

Hello @Andrew157,

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts 🙂

I just want to add that I have clarified in the begining of this post that I'm not Stereotyping my countrymen but just sharing my personal experience with my guests and for the same reason I have repeatedly used the word "most" Indians instead of all, because I completely understand that each guest is unique and exhibits different traits, and defintiely not all Indians are as I have mentioned.

Having said that, I appreaciate a lot how you think and the fact that you were so helpful to your guests from Saudi.

With so much tension rising these days between nations due to the existing World Events, I thought it was necessary that I shared that are some of the norms in India like negotiating the price, asking multiple questions prior to booking due to a large bunch of the population being new to the online world and Airbnb specifically.

I have had some experiences as a guest where I felt that my booking requests were declined unreasonably and this is my small attempt to ensure that guests across nations are more open and welcoming to all Nationalities. I'm sorry if I worded a few things wrongly in my post, but let me assure that I had no bad intentions.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts 🙂

Jeet

[Andrew157]

Hey no problem. I spent 3 months in India when I was a student working in a hospital in Pune and then travelling to Kashmir via Amritsarand I found everyone open and welcoming even when they had litte and I was the relatively wealthy student. Hopefully I did not offend anyone and built bridges. 

[Jeet0]

Ahh, that's lovely to hear. I'm from Pune too 🙂

I'm sure you had a nice time working in and exploring Pune. If you ever plan to visit again, do let me know, would love to meetup!

[Ma0]

maybe you missed the point, Jeet IS building bridges by making

hosts understand the Indian culture and how to relate to it effectivly

on a human level in peace and harmony between hosts and guests which

other wise will build walls of misunderstanding.

[Julia66]

Thank you for that carefully worded advice, @Jeet0. 

[Ma0]

unfortuntly the rest of us are not perfect as you are Andrew. I am westerner being in india (and loved it) and learned first hand difrent cultures has difrent hubits and ways to doing buisness how this make her stereotiping indians? she is indian herself so i asume she know what she is talking about.

[Jay120]

Out of order, Andrew, Windermere! Your idea of building bridges is very odd, if attack is always your opening gambit! And why bring up your Saudi guests and your minimal help? Is that in the least relevant to Indian guests or hosts?! Jeet has packed a lot of insightful information into a short article, which is instructive and thought-provoking and very diplomatically written. Did you not reading here opening two paragraphs? What you call stereotyping is nothing of the sort! A little generalisation is entirely acceptable when talking about a billion people from across a whole sub-continent. Imagine trying to talk about all Europeans without huge generalisations! Having been to India, you should have understood that those traveling abroad are certainly used to cooks and other servants. It probably provides (alongside kitchen use) the biggest potential for conflict between guest and host in areas of the world, where people are unused to either. Expectations on both sides are going to exceed and/or come short of reality unless there is frank and open discourse. I give Jeet more than thumbs up, because it has brought these aspects of intercultural encounter to our attention. Top marks, Jeet! And thank you for tackling such a thankless task. Please excuse those of us who have travelled, but learned nothing along the way! 🙂

[Andrea9]

@Jeet0

This is a great post!

Every country seems to have their own flavor in behaviour, and it's sad that even daring to mention that is pounced upon by the black PC beast. As much as we might like to shout it from the roof tops that we are all equal and the same, we won't be the same. We all started being imbibed with the cultural soup of our heritage, and every country has their own idiosyncracies or even as you say, maids may be a given in a normal household.

There have been numerous posts about hosts noticing a kind of general red line of similarities re. guest behaviour like expectations, and not understanding the cultural root that these originate from makes it difficult for hosts to handle.

Anyway, it answers quite a few questions I've seen raised here and there! Thanks!

[Jeet0]

@Andrea9, thank you so much for your appreciation. I'm glad that the idea of sharing cultural behaviour resonated with you.

 I think it's good to understand your guests and where there are coming from in advance so that we can prepare in the best possible way to ensure that they have a 5 star experience.

[David-and-Fiona0]

Great post. Thanks @Jeet0.  Understanding cultural differences is a challenge I enjoy. 

[Dev4]

@Jeet0

Hi Jeet, 

I agree with point 1, 2 and 5. For me the big one is 5, "kitchen habits", as people tend to cook in the kitchen and since Indian food is very aromatic, it can leave an odour in the unit. If not dealt with properly, it can be a problem for the incoming guests specially if the window between turnover is only a couple of hours. 

I deal with a lot of new users of Airbnb, so pt 1 is common to all of them as users are getting familiaried with the concept. Pt 2, "negotiations" is in the personality of people. Some people like to bargain for everything and some don't care a **bleep**. Poeple need to realise that the premise of Airbnb is "affordable" stays. 

I wouldn't agree to point 3 & 4; as I find Indian people to be very respectful. Having worked with a lot of Indians in Canada, I find that some hesitate to call leaders by first name as it is common to address "seniors" as sir or madam in the workforce in India.

Regards,

Casadell 

[Jeet0]

Thanks @Julia66, @David-and-Fiona0 , glad you found my tips useful 🙂

[Jeet0]

Hello @Dev4,

Yup, very true, people like to bargain and fail to realize that Airbnb's are already reasonably priced, thus in such scenarios I try to explain what my place offers which other places don't at the same cost and also give them an idea of what an equivalent hotel would cost them, after which people are mostly understanding.

Reg. 2, 3, yes, they are very courteous and kind at heart, however most aren't accustomed to greeting generally because of the sheer amount of people we have in our country. I had noticed in Dublin, parts of Cali that even passerbys smile at you and say "Good day", but that's not something that happens in India. I'm sure the ones you've met in CA are used to greet one another since it's probably a soical norm in CA, and am happy you've had a positive experience.

I've had guests who haven't even bothered to inform me when they'd be checking in, whether they've checked in, whether they've liked the place or not, whether everything is fine, but that's just becasue they are mostly first timers in a BNB and are still learning. So I try to be patient there and I send them a message or give them a call from my end to check if everything is alright and if they've checked in.