Useful Owner Info

How to improve the service level of your villa

There are always things you can do to make your property attractive to potential guests, receive great reviews and most importantly – get customers coming back for repeat visits
And its all down to service. What do you provide to your guests?

Airport Transfers – give your guests’ trip a good start

This is an easy one but sometimes overlooked by owners. This may be your guests’ first trip to Koh Lanta, or even Thailand. Give them peace of mind by letting them know that they can book a taxi with the host, direct to the villa. After 20 hours of flying, its a huge relief to many customers knowing that the host is taking care of them as soon as they land. Think about providing a free taxi for longer bookings, or peak season bookings. 

Check In – do you meet the guests or just tell them where to get the key?

Its much better to meet the guests and provide a villa orientation, plus an orientation on the local area. Remember a lot of guests have never been to Koh Lanta before, so they really appreciate a personal explanation of the island. Make sure you also have local maps and guidebooks around too. And if you can, make a villa information pack that stays in the villa, and that should have as much information as possible for the guest

Guest Supplies – what do you provide for your guests?

After 20 hours of traveling, you arrive at your villa and whats there? Water and toilet paper. Would you be satisfied with this? Provide a bit more. For a small extra cost you can add tea, coffee, milk, fresh fruit and a couple of snacks.If you cant bear this extra cost, make sure the guests know exactly what will be there when they arrive, and provide a service where you stock up the fridge for the guest, who then pays you on arrival

Just a little extra makes a huge difference to the mood of guests when they arrive – and first impressions generally last their whole stay.

Concierge – how available are you?

Obviously you need a number where your guests can message you for any problems they have  – this is standard.
But make your service a bit more than this… make sure the guest knows they can contact you for anything…make yourself available to call taxis, book restaurant tables, order delivery food etc. This might sounds like a lot of work….and it can be. But it pays off to go the extra mile for the guests who need it.

Make sure your response time is quick – having to wait hours for a reply is not a good guest experience

Breakfast – make sure guests have options

A lot of people are interested in renting villas that provide a breakfast service. If you cant provide a cooked breakfast service in your villa, at least have a delivery option from a local restaurant or bakery.  Don’t just let the guests deal with this themselves, take their order daily and make sure its delivered correctly. 

If you have some kind of breakfast option, your villa then becomes attractive to people that might otherwise book a hotel. 

Cleaning – be flexible

Daily cleaning…some guests (especially higher end) need the property cleaned regularly. The normal cleaning standard on Koh Lanta is once per week, but if you can offer more often than that, you become more attractive to certain guests. Daily cleaning might be out of your budget, but you should at least have a service on offer where the guest can pre-book and pay for cleaning on a daily or 2 daily basis. And then you become more attractive to that kind of guest

Beach/Town  Shuttle – consider this

If your property is more than about 15 minutes walk to the beach, you could offer your guests a free ride to the beach in the morning, and back in the afternoon. In the tropical heat – especially families with young kids or older guests –  people don’t want to walk very far, and for that reason they might choose a property thats closer to the beach than yours. So if you offer this service, you become more attractive to more people