Self catering welcome pack - yes or no?

[Malteser71]

So I’m wondering about our holiday let in Cornwall and ether it’s worth continuing to provide a ‘welcome pack’ of goodies.

It generally costs us about £15 per changeover. We include tea/coffee/milk/sugar/biscuits and crisps.

Thing is, when I’m a guest myself, I dont drink tea and I don’t take sugar. Lots of people have food allergies/intolerances.

What do you all think? Do you appreciate these welcome gifts on arrival? What goods do you like ?

Airbnb has a basics list. I'd leave:

• pint of milk in fridge
• teabags and instant coffee (I buy those individually wrapped portions like you get in hotels so there's no waste)
• new small bottle of olive oil
• individual salt and pepper sachets (I grab them when I'm at Ikea or wherever)
• washing up liquid, new sponge, fresh tea towel
• surface cleaning spray and kitchen roll
• new bottles of shower gel and 2 in 1 shampoo+conditioner (Lidl)
• plenty of loo roll

I get everything except the tea and coffee from Lidl and use it up myself if the guests don't finish it, or recycle it for the next guest if unopened, so it doesn't cost me much. Sounds like your offering is more of a luxury hamper - I'm not sure that people will necessarily perceive the value in that?

Sorry @sashh as it's a nice idea but I'd rather buy my own than use frozen milk cubes. In all the properties we stayed in in NZ they provided a small bottle of milk.

I would love and notice and eat/drink - days supply tea bags and coffee. Milk and small soy/oat milk. But I’d consider this a staple welcome - Cornish cream tea - would likely have it following morning.
However it’s not necessary. What Id really like is to know what’s there by email a few days prior so I can sort myself and my coolbag from my own fridge out.
Your cleaner seems astonishingly expensive ???

I like a welcome pack! Could be any or all of the things mentioned in this thread, the main thing is that it shows you've thought about your guests. Just some tea/coffee, milk & biscuits is enough, or we've been given croissants /bread and jam for breakfast before. Anything homemade would be lovely but I appreciate you need to live locally for that to work.

It wouldn't be the only reason I choose a property but honestly it has been a deciding factor in the past when reviews rave about the welcome pack.

See really like @VodkaSlimline’s list. It’s useful and the kind of stuff that’s annoying to have to buy on holiday.

I know everyone on here likes biscuits but DD is gluten intolerant and I’m really severely coeliac. I can’t have open gluten around so they’d go uneaten, and sit there for the week reminding me of the lovely things I can’t have. I also end up feeling I’ve “paid” for something none of us can eat, though I appreciate the thought behind it.

If you do it at all I’d be making it more basic and useful, though I realise from this thread you are never going to please everyone!

@Bladedancer

Like many others have said, I always pack the basics that we need on arrival (tea, coffee, milk, salt, pepper etc) as there is no guarantee that anything will be provided. On our last stay in a self catering cottage last Sept we found a pre-paid card for £5 for Tesco’s which was the nearest supermarket and a box of Celebrations. That was great because there was no wastage and I could use the voucher at any time;- in fact I ended up bringing it home with me and using it later

Now this is a brilliant idea!

I'd go small coffee / small tea / small supply of sugar sachets / small milk / Cornish biscuits or cake.

That will get me in the door and we can have a drink before going food shopping. Not everyone travels by car and even if I was driving, I'd be loathe to cart fresh foods 6 hours in amongst all the other hot car stuff

When I have had my duvet cover professionally laundered it was about £7 so even with other sheets etc £20? I think someone has seen you coming OP.

You clearly don't live near me. I took one set of bedding to my local cleaners and made the "mistake" of asking for my set to be laundered and ironed and it came to well over £30 - and that was just one set (duvet cover sheet and pillowcases). I can get it done as service wash for around £20, but that wouldnt be ironed and I guess a holiday cottage owner would need to have it ironed.

I'd like a Cornish cream tea and some white wine. We had this in a cottage we hired in Cornwall two years ago and the dc still talk about it!

But agree that a week of bin bags, dishwasher tabs and loo roll is more important.

Tbh I'd expect washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, bin bags, couple of loo rolls, cleaning spray as general as you only need to top it up not replace between customers surely.

you can't have kilner jar of teabags and sugar.

Buy a large pack of individually wrapped tea bags and put 20 out in the welcome pack.

Buy indiviual catering sugars in individual servings and put 20 out.
small pack of milk, a few coffee pods and a pack of biscuits.

I rented out my house in Spain, very successfully, for 15 years.

The more you add, the pickier people are. If you provide bread, you need to provide butter and jam. If you provide oil, it has to be brand new. If you provide tea you ned to provide coffee and milk and a drink suitable for DC's. It just goes on and on. At one point I was putting buckets and spades on beds with DC's. You can get carried away and I found, people really didn't appreciate it.

So, provide one luxury item like a bottle of fizzy wine.
Bottle of luxury water.

That's it. If they don't drink they'll take it with them or leave it. Water is appreciated by everyone, including DC's.

People are too picky about coffee/tea/olive oil/opened packages etc, especially with covid.

Sealed water a celebratory drink is appreciated. A small bowl of fruit might be nice, if you want to push the boat out.

Your changeover costs are very high. They are hugely marking that up. Just take in a bottle of fizz and water yourself when you do the meet and greet or, leave a stash somewhere safe in the house/garage and instruct the cleaner to place it for you each changeover.

I personally would just have coffee, tea, sugar as standard in the house. No need to buy a special one each time. Just replace when it runs out.

I personally don't like it when we are left milk, because I'm picky about only using full fat milk and it's always semi-skimmed or skimmed. Some people don't eat dairy at all or gluten. When people leave us milk, it almost always goes to waste as we bring our own milk and can't get through it all.

You could offer the option to do a special hamper, which people can pre-order, if you want to provide an extra touch. Dh ordered one of the these for a special weekend away once which had champagne, crackers, cheeses, cake, etc. But I wouldn't expect that for free.

It depends on how much your margins are.
If it’s a luxury self catering cottage then absolutely include it.
I’d it’s quite basic and accounts for a significant proportion of your bottom line then no way Jose.

I am in a minority on MN as I think if you are self catering, that is what you do self cater. Why should you be supplied everything ?

I think it just adds to the cost of the holiday and I do not drink tea or coffee so it is a waste - I would prefer enough bin liners, a washing up cloth and the place being spotless.

A good information pack is also essential, with instructions on how to work oven/tv etc and also local attractions/restaurants/take away and markets.

If you feel you have to leave something a packet of local biscuits I feel is enough, but it all depends on your rental price if you are the higher end then a welcome pack with everything in is expected.

yep, the more I left, the more I tried to cater for people, the more, almost suspicious they got!

They feel 'I have come self catering, I don't want you to cater for me with your tastes'! They feel they have paid for it.

Loo roll is obviously essential but other than that as I said above, nice bottle of wine and water.

It is not up to you to provide dishwasher tablets, oil, salt and pepper, milk, tea and coffee, gluten free bread and on and on... it is not an hotel, it is a self catering holiday.

I bet your paying your housekeeper to pop to the shops.
I also think I'd be feed up doing it if I was her.
People really don't need or want this extra and it's cost you well over £300 a year in extras, when you add it all up.

I'd rather have DW tabs than wine...

We stayed at a NT holiday let recently. Their welcome pack was:

• 1 pack of local biscuits
• 2 sachets of ground coffee for cafetière
• 4 individually wrapped tea bags
• sugar sachets
• half pint of local milk in fridge

Probably didn’t cost them more than £5 (especially as they could reuse any tea/coffee that wasn’t used).

I thought it was perfect.

We had a lovely one at a Welsh cottage recently: Welsh butter, bara brith, and a local unsliced loaf, plus some coffee bags (I didn’t know those exist!) and tiny pots of Tiptree jam and marmalade, plus a bottle of milk in the fridge.
I don’t think it would have cost much at all but we were delighted with it.

I love a welcome pack but I’m happy to pay for it as an optional extra.

That Airbnb list is bizarre given that this is a company that thinks a carbon monoxide alarm is an optional extra.

I used to have a large holiday let. I would leave some sachets of instant coffee, tea bags, sugar sachets and UHT milk for an emergency cuppa on arrival. Last season we also left biscuits and a bottle of Prosecco. At Christmas I would leave mulled wine and mince pies.

Toilet rolls, dishwasher tabs, washing up liquid and a cleaning spray, washing up brush etc are essentials and always there.

We had a bouquet of fake flowers in a vase on the dining table. Used to have real ones, but got complaints from people with allergies

I don't think people appreciate how much a changeover clean costs, especially with extra time being needed for Covid safe cleaning. It's much more involved than a standard house clean. The whole house needs to be done from top to bottom including changing all linen, checking drawers and cupboards, etc. All this in a pretty short time window and often on a weekend, which pushes rates up.

I love them but don't necessarily think you need to spend £15. Ours that we stayed in last week had a tray with some coffee/sugar sachets and a few individually wrapped teabags that we didn't use as we took our own (presume you can buy in bulk so won't cost much per stay) then there was a small carton of milk and packet of nice quality biscuits. I was happy with that!