Hospitality gone wild

So far today might take the cake. I stopped by a property after the guest shared with me that the maids had watered down the shampoo and body wash to a point that they were difficult to use at all, and indicated that they would appreciate me getting them some undeluded stuff… So I dropped by about 48 hours later to refill these items from our recent delivery and I noticed that the kitchen, living and dining areas were a mess and it looks like they rushed through breakfast with the kids, and then hit the streams to do some fly fishing… They had about an hour worth of dishes that I knew would greet them when they got home from their adventure and I’ve been in that situation and it’s not fun, so I thought… What the heck… I’m here and could use some space in the sink anyway so why don’t I start a load of dishes and organize a bit, so without touching any personal items and taking a bit of liberty with some dirty dishes I started a load in the dishwasher and cleaned off the countertops 

I guess there’s a chance they could be ticked, but hopefully they’re blessed instead, and have a little bit less to deal with when they return from their mountain adventures

​@anthonyrallo I know you’ve got some good ones… Care to share?

I LOVED that book as well! I’m relatively new to hosting, but I enjoy adding a personal touch to our welcome basket when guests share why they’re visiting. Our next guests are coming to see their in-laws and celebrate their little boy’s first birthday, so I tucked a little stuffed bunny into a cute birthday bag and added it to their basket. It wasn’t a big expense, and I really enjoyed doing something a little out of the ordinary to make their stay feel special.

​@Brittany80027 that is a thoughtful addition to the welcome basket!!  I hope that makes its way into the reviews or at the very least shows the guest how attentive you’re being with a desire to show care! 

There was a great session on this at VRMA in Nashville a couple weeks ago. It was about taking the Disney World mentality toward how you treat your guests (based on the Disney Institute book, “Be Our Guest”). 

We’re admittedly not very rah-rah about recognizing all the birthdays and anniversaries and even honeymoons that many of our guests are celebrating. It’s mostly a logistics thing -- the difficulty of purchasing and dropping off whatever “thoughtful touches” we would normally like to do. It’s hard enough on most days just to make sure everyone’s able to check in on time!  

The one time we really did go out of our way though, was when a guest told us that her daughter was turning 4 years old and that her birthday was on the 4th of July itself. We thought that was special enough that we wanted to do something really thoughtful for that little girl!

So we got her balloons, and streamers, and left her a tiara with a handwritten note. We decorated our place so that she would see these things as soon as they checked in.

And what happened after check-in was…. nothing LOL. No “wow, what a surprise!” and no “thank you, my daughter loved what you did for her!”

Not that we were expecting tons of recognition. But the complete LACK of acknowledgement was very strange, to say the least. She even asked us mundane questions midway through her stay (about the TV or whatever) and never made a single mention of it. That’s WEIRD, right?

I’m not saying this experience spoiled us on WANTING to do nice things for our guests. I just thought it was a funny, somewhat-relevant story :-)

Since VRMA I’ve been wanting to find ways of recognizing special occasions without the logistical constraints of physically visiting the property during a tight turnover window. Making videos to send via text (e.g. my wife and I singing “Happy Birthday”) is an idea that was demonstrated at one of the other VRMA breakout sessions (on how to get guests to keep coming back). That’s easy enough to do, and this thread has helped motivate me to start doing stuff like that. 

That is bizarro that such a thoughtful gesture wen’t un-acknowledged!! 

The logistically constraint is a real one for serious.  I love the idea of the custom videos as a low-logistics version of this!

Last ski season we put together enough “Welcome to the Utah Mountains” welcome bags and left them with the cleaning team to distribute and made a video for each person letting them know what was in the bag.  It was never mentioned in reviews specifically, but it seems to have provided a “warm intro” to those guests 🤷‍♂️