Guest Information Packs

[Chianti]

I'm with A2 and most of the others. Many of our guests have never stayed in a rental property abroad before. Cookers, gas hobs, washing machines etc may all be different to those they use at home. The current/voltage is much greater and therefore more dangerous. In Italy all gas cookers and hobs have a special handle on the wall in order to turn the supply on and off and they are unlikely to have come across this before.

Not all countries have 2 buttons to press in order to flush the loo.

We provide written details on all of our equipment but we also photocopy the instruction leaflets.

We insure that they know where and how to use the fire hydrant and the fuse box.

Then there are new notes which we are planning to add in regards to the countryside such as being aware that they must wear walking shoes or boots if they walk in the woods or through the fields because we have poisonious snakes and not to pick fruit at random to eat unless they wash it 1st as most farmers use chemical sprays, but we don't. Most will never have seen a scorpion so it's worth a warning.

They may not be aware that they can walk through the fields as all land in Italy belongs to the state etc etc

Everything will be shown to them upon arrival, but a 1st day abroad can be like ones 1st day in a new job. The Welcome Pack gives them the chance to review something in case they forget, but it also provides useful info about the area and its activities.

No one can force them to read it, one can only suggest it, but I think that most will want to thumb through it out of interest in a quiet moment.

Lets put it this way, those of us who make the effort will get the business and those who don't shouldn't.

Chianti

[enid]

I agree - I do try to give as much information as possible. I'm just starting to redo ours - trying to get the information down in an accessible and not too wordy way (thanks Margaret for letting me see yours).

We are on site so that does make a small difference as people can ask us things without feeling they are interrupting us too much when they see us round and about watering etc

Personally I aways enjoy looking at the guest booklet with mt first cup of coffee or wine and it's a black mark if there isn't one!

[Margaret]

In the end, we modelled our on ones you get in a hotel, with everything in alphabetical order of subject, with a contents list at the front.

[Giddy Goat]

I agree, that's a good idea. We have a manual too, as opposed to one A4 page; it would be nice to think that a single page would cover what guests need to know, but we're not on site to answer questions, and it's a big, quirky house - but I appreciate the size of the manual is a bit daunting for some. For this reason we also started sending them a hard copy, along with the directions after the balance is paid. That way they can get themselves into holiday mode in advance and be briefed a little before the holiday actually starts and while they still have a brain! Loss of cerebral activity as soon as the key is in the foreign door is one that is familiar to me personally. Plenty of other threads on this topic by the way.

So, getting to the point just made, an indexed one does seem to be the best way to go. But oh dear, I feel a large project coming on! Scissors out then - sigh ...

[Chianti]

G G

I like the idea of an index, as our apartment is rather small, we made the instructions for it room by room, as I thought it might be easier to find anwers that way.

I'm going to index the section with tourist information as it grows. I hadn't thought of it before.

I think the info packs can and should be great fun.

Chianti

[Margaret]

We do the tourist information separately as it is rather extensive (there is almost no local information in English). That is indexed too.