Check In times

[Jennifer1897]

Just a  general questions about check in times. I rent a room in my three bedroom home with a current check in time of 3 pm (which can be done via lock box) and a check out of 11 am. During the week I work about 45 min from home, and  I am gone about 6am-5pm. On occasions when guest book only one night (lets use a Tuesday for example) I have to end up blocking out the day before and the day after due to not being home to clean and flip the space. I have entertained the idea of a maid, however most have quoting me higher or close to my booking price per hour, so on a regular basis it would not be practical. I am finding that I do get a lot of one night bookings due to my area, so I am essentially loosing 2 nights for every one during the week.

I was considering changing my check in time during the week to 6pm. Do you think this is too late, or is it reasonable? Just looking for some opinions.

[Solveig0]

Hi @Jennifer1897 , 

I would look at your current guests. When do most people you host actually check in? Do they appreciate the early check in, or wouldn't it really matter? Most of our guests arrive after 6pm, so for us it wouldn't be a problem. 

[Jennifer1897]

I would say the average time is 5 or so, which made me entertain the idea that 6 is not such a stretch. It's mainly on the weekends that I get the earlier people. 

[Anonymous]

@Jennifer1897 You can choose a 6 PM check-in time if that works best for you; you'll just have to be prepared to field a lot of requests for early check-in. Also, I'm not sure that this really facilitates same-day changeovers all that well. If you get stuck in heavy traffic on the way home, or arrive to find the space needs more than the standard cleaning, you risk being unprepared when the guest arrives. There's also the burnout factor;  nobody wants to end a long day at work by racing home to clean and make beds.

Given your schedule, it sounds like setting a longer Minimum Stay might be the better option. If you need a day of preparation time between bookings anyway, you can maintain a higher occupancy rate with longer stays, even if you lose the business of the one-nighters. I think if I had hours like yours, I'd be angling toward stays of 1 or 2 weeks, and perhaps even restricting the check-in dates so that rooms only have to be changed over on the weekends.

[Jennifer1897]

You bring up a good point. The cleaning. Thus far all my people have been very tidy and don't even utilize the kitchen or common areas that much. I am sure however at some point I will encounter the one that requires that extensive longer clean, and an Hr definitely does not leave much room for errors. 

Unfortunately my town is rather small though and is on the outskirts of A National Park, and a few hrs from bigger cities, so I get a lot people who stay just a night on their way through. I wish I had more flexibility to require longer stays or minimums, but I am pretty sure I would lower my occupancy quite a bit if I did that. 

Thank you for your suggestions. 

[Anonymous]

@Jennifer1897  It looks like you've been hosting for about 3 months - enough time to earn a solid reputation and great reviews, but it takes quite a bit longer to see the full potential of your space and recognize more of the untapped sources of demand. Also, you'll eventually get people planning ahead more, and you'll notice times that an advance 1-night booking actually lowers your potential occupancy.

Over time, you'll find that you have much more influence over who books your space and for what type/length of trip than it seems now. For example: your first few photos (the only ones that appear upon initial glance at the listing without a click-through) only feature the bed and bathroom, so their appeal is limited to people who are just looking for a comfortable bed for the night. Guests who are planning a longer stay are thinking less about the bed than the overall living area, so if you want to attract those you might feature things like balcony, kitchen, and work space more prominently and just have one pic of the bed at the front.  

These choices are all up to you; the important thing to remember is that you are in control here, and you need not be enslaved to what you perceive the market to be nor what Airbnb tries to pressure you into doing. One awesome thing about hosting is that you can reverse-engineer your offering from the end goal of what kind of experience you want to result from it. 

[Yulianna0]

@Jennifer1897, I have check in time starting from 9PM. And I’m always booked:) But it depends if people are arriving late to your town,  in this case there is no problem to establish late check in. But be ready for many requests about early arrival. People do not read and if read, do not understand:)