Picture this: you’ve arrived sweaty and rumpled, with that weird post-flight feeling of being both bloated and hungry at the same time. All you want to do is check in and test out the couch cushions, but you know you’ll have to turn around, get back in the rental car, and attempt to find a grocery store.
Only when you open the door you’re greeted by a charming gift basket with fancy snacks, a bottle of wine, and coffee! Hooray! Vacation starts now.
More and more hosts are leaving welcome baskets for their guests. If you’ve been thinking about it, or if the gifts you’ve been leaving for guests don’t seem to be cutting it, I’ve got some ideas for you. Read on.
Table of Contents
First, Is a Welcome Basket a must?
Short answer: no. A welcome basket is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have. Here are reasons you might want to skip it:
For stays of just a few nights.
You may not make enough profit on these bookings to justify the expense and labor of buying and presenting special treats for every check-in. However, if you provide amenities like coffee, tea, and toiletries, you could present these in a pretty container with your guest book and a personalized note to create a warm welcome.
If you’re counting on a busy housekeeper.
Those who live far from their vacation rentals may work with a co-host or housekeeper as their local contact. Asking them to arrange a special gift basket for every check-in may be a bridge too far. But if you streamline the process by ordering in bulk and leaving clear instructions on putting everything together, you can welcome your guests without creating too much work for your helpers.
You’re pretty sure your guests don’t want it.
You know your ideal guests best, so if you think gift baskets are not their love language, meet them where they are. That might mean that clear check-in instructions, putting the WiFi code front and center, and staying out of their way are all the welcome gestures they want or need.
What Goes into a Great Guest Welcome Basket?
Beyond the basic amenities, like coffee and soap, gift baskets can contain anything from hand-crafted, locally made snacks to branded beer koozies. As with everything, first, consider your ideal guests.
Who are your ideal guests?
Years ago, I heard about a host who inspected the recycling bins after his guests departed to make a note of what kind of alcoholic beverages they liked. He would then have those beverages waiting for them for their next stay. It worked for his guests, but I’m guessing many would find such a thing a bit invasive and creepy. So maybe don’t do that.
However, you should have a general sense of your guests’ age range, whether they’re traveling with young kids or not, and whether they’re planning a mountain biking trip or a layaround the pool trip. Use those insights to choose a few things you think they would like.
You could cater to hikers by leaving them locally-made trail mix, a reusable water bottle, and a map of local trails. Snowbirds might appreciate a nice bottle of wine and some cheese crisps, and families with small children would be thrilled to find a bucket full of new sandcastle-making toys waiting for them.
It’s possible, however, that you don’t know a lot about the guests who are booking your vacation rental, especially if you allow instant booking.
I would encourage you to ask them friendly, non-invasive questions about their visit so you learn more about who is attracted to your listing, but aside from that, it’s perfectly fine to come up with a gift basket formula to use for every guest.
What’s special to your area?
Research snacks and beverages made locally. A farmer’s market is a great place to discover local vendors, and you may be able to make a deal if you buy in bulk and promote their brand by gifting them to your guests.
Beyond snacks, you can also gift inexpensive things that make activities specific to your location easier or more fun. Think golf tees, a bandana for outdoor adventures, regional magazines, or organic bug repellant. What would make it easier for your guests to have fun?
What suits your brand?
If you write your own listing descriptions, answer guest questions, and add your own touches to your vacation rental decor, you have a brand identity,
Is your rental fun, sophisticated, quirky, professional, or laid-back? Your welcome basket choices should reflect the type of stay your guests can expect at your place. For example:
- Fun- deck of cards, cookies with sprinkles, pack of drink umbrellas
- Sophisticated – bottle of wine or sparkling water, gourmet chocolates, pack of golf tees
- Quirky – Jar of locally made pickles, sleep-enhancing aromatherapy essential oil roller, map marked with all your local favorites
- Professional – custom logo travel mug, local-roasted coffee, welcome letter
- Laid-back – beer koozies, local-made potato chips, magazines
What’s your nightly rate?
Your gift basket should align with your nightly rate and the length of the guests’ stay. The last thing you want is guests looking at your generous welcome basket and thinking they were overcharged for their stay.
The gift you leave should be a percentage of your nightly rate. That percentage depends on many factors, but you can start with 10% of your nightly rate. So if your place rents for $450 a night, your gift basket budget should be $45. If guests are staying longer, say more than two weeks, you can bump it up to 20%.
How to Make Your Guest Welcome Basket Stand Out
A guest welcome basket doesn’t necessarily have to be an actual basket, but they are attractive and inexpensive. Make sure to have an extra on hand because occasionally, a guest will take the whole thing, basket and all.
Baskets can be dressed up to fit an occasion, the season, or your decor. At my vacation rental, I line our guest welcome basket with a seasonal dish towel artfully draped over the sides, and I sometimes include a little faux potted plant for more color and to fill the corners. You could do the same with tissue paper, an artfully tied ribbon, or the more traditional shredded paper or Excelsior filler.
Your guest welcome gift could also arrive in a reusable tote, a beach bucket, or a metal party tub. Choose a container that sets the mood and coordinates with your decor – just remember that if it’s too good, it might go home with your guests! (That’s a good thing.)
What You Absolutely Must Do Before You Consider a Welcome Basket
Be great at customer service.
It does not matter how amazing your guest welcome basket is if your guests have a problem and no one answers their calls. Bad customer service will kill any goodwill that a gift imparts.
So before you set foot in the farmer’s market, be sure you’ve established a system for answering guests promptly. My favorite way to do this is to save each guest on my phone with a special “guest” ringtone and text alert. I also set them to “emergency bypass” so that I still get their alerts even if my ringer is turned off.
If there are times of the day you can’t be reached, be sure they have a second number to call or text.
That’s not to say you can never make a mistake—that’s how I learned to ensure I always get a message from my guests—but if it’s clear that you’re doing your best, your welcome basket will be seen as the generous gift it is and not a bribe for a good review.
Cover the basics
Gifts are “nice to haves,” but what guests really want are the things that will make their stay easy. Be sure basic amenities are covered: coffee, tea, salt, olive oil, paper towels, dish sponges, etc. If you don’t have the budget for these things and a gift, skip the gift. Ensuring your guests have enough towels and don’t have to buy a bottle of dishwashing liquid, cooking oil, or salt for a 3-night stay is expected. They won’t care about your guest welcome basket if you skip the basics.
Understand that you can’t please everyone.
What if your guests are gluten intolerant, allergic to nuts, non-drinkers, or hate dark chocolate? Well, they’ll either ignore your guest welcome basket or re-gift it to someone else. And that’s totally fine. It’s impossible to find the one thing everyone likes and futile to spend time and energy looking for it. People have vastly different tastes and preferences, so know that some people will love it, but some won’t, and that’s okay.
Know, too, that some people just aren’t interested in gifts. Unfathomable, I know, but I should be used to it because my husband happens to be one of those people. When we arrive at a vacation rental and find a thoughtful selection of treats, I gush about how thoughtful our hosts are. He grimaces and says he’d rather they’d taken the cost off the nightly rate and let him buy his own treats. If, on the other hand, our hosts refer us to their favorite restaurants, let us borrow bicycles, or show care in other ways, the vacation rental quickly becomes one of his favorites.
His love language is acts of service, not gifts. That will be the case with some of your guests. That doesn’t mean that your welcome basket is a bad idea. It just means that you should back up the thoughtful gesture with goodwill gestures that don’t cost a thing, like good communication with your guests and personalized recommendations.
How Do You Know If You’re Getting It Right?
Reviews that mention your generosity
Few things are more satisfying than a guest complimenting your thoughtfulness and generosity in a review for all to read. If you get a few reviews like that, you’re definitely doing it right. Keep leaving those thoughtful welcome gifts. After all, your guests will expect it once it’s mentioned in your reviews.
If, on the other hand, no one ever mentions your welcome basket, it may be time to re-evaluate. Have you ensured you’ve covered the basics and that your customer service is on point? Guests won’t comment on a gift basket if they aren’t satisfied with their stay.
Is it time to up your game? Are you personalizing your gift with a hand-written note, insider info, or a special treat made locally? You may need to get more creative to make an impression.
Or is it possible that your typical guests don’t expect or appreciate a gift basket? If that’s the case, you may want to scale back your offering to “just the basics” or stop leaving a gift basket altogether. There’s nothing wrong with that; focus your money and time on things that align with what your guests want. A great way to find out what those things are is to ask in a quick post-stay survey or simple feedback form.
Personal messages and thank yous
A text or email from your guests thanking you for your thoughtfulness tells you you’re getting it right. Make note of anything specific they mention so that you know to include it in your guest welcome basket in the future.
Feedback requests
It’s common to send a “how did we do” survey to guests after departure, but if they arrive even a few days after guests have returned to reality, they will have (sadly) forgotten a lot about their stay.
A simple paper feedback form left in your rental is a better way to get comments while your guests are at your place and thinking about it. It also gives everyone in the party a chance to comment rather than just the person who booked. Keep it short and to the point. Ask guests if anything needs attention, if there is anything you could have improved, anything they would have liked to have, and anything they particularly liked. Inviting them to think of something positive on the last question is a good way to leave on a high note.
So what do you think? Are you ready to start crafting an impressive guest welcome basket, or have you decided that you really don’t need one? Let us know in the comments!
