Hospitality

Are you speaking the right language?

Welcome guests in their language

Sound Familiar?

Pesky Problem

Your guests can’t read any of your welcome materials.

Your welcome material game is on point. Just inside the door to your Airbnb, guests find a thorough house manual, an expansive local guide, and even a handwritten welcome note, all waiting to greet them.

There’s just one problem: some guests can’t read any of it. Their language is not your language. And all of those carefully crafted greetings suddenly become glaring disconnects that, at their worst, carry an exclusionary subtext that says, “This place wasn’t made for you.“

Let's Try This

Bite-Size Solution

Replicate your welcome materials in your guests’ language.

Meet Nikos, Ketti, and Kostas, a son-mom-dad team running two Airbnb’s in their building located in the heart of Athens, Greece. (Who wouldn’t want to visit their Mediterranean Airbnb Plus apartment?) Since launching their first Airbnb, they have welcomed guests from over 25 countries into their home. And—you guessed it—those guests speak different languages.

That’s why their Airbnb’s thoughtful “Quick Start Guide” is available in English, French, German, as well as Greek, along with partial translations into Spanish, Russian, and Italian. This family knows they’re routinely hosting international travelers. Instead of asking each guest to perpetually do the digital translational leg work, these hosts are doing their best to take that weight off their guests. After all, they’re on vacation!

5 Minutes

Here's Your First Step

Identify the most common languages your guests speak.

First things first. Let’s identify the most common languages spoken by your guests. Open up the Airbnb app and flip through the guests you’ve hosted in the last six months. Take a look at each guest’s listed languages and tally up the results. Which languages are most common? Do you have your welcome material available in those leading languages?

Also, double check that all the key information you provide on paper can also be found in the Airbnb app, which will do the heavy lifting of translating that digital presence into your guests (and potential guests!) preferred language.

INSPIRED BY you

This week’s Big Heart Hosting post was inspired by Nikos, Ketti, and Kostas, Airbnb Superhosts in Athens, Greece. Just click here to explore the full listing.

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You’re an ambitious Airbnb host with a big heart. But on some days, hosting isn’t exactly what you had imagined. Maybe it’s overwhelming. Or isolating. Or just not making the kind of money you had envisioned. At Big Heart Hosting, we’re on a mission to help hosts like you thrive, not just get by. We create step-by-step resources that bring together the best hosting strategies from around the world. We’ll give you the knowledge and community you need to create the joyful, prosperous Airbnb you deserve.

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