4 simple improvements

Try leaving some personalised postcards for your guests to send to friends and family

There are many improvements you can make to increase customer satisfaction and gain new and repeat bookings, here are 4 simple ones:

• Remember that cleanliness really is the big issue. Keeping your property spotless and well maintained is vital so if you’re unable to do it yourself, make sure you find someone you can trust. A dirty bathroom or fridge makes for bad reviews, which could deter future customers from booking.

• Consider installing a hot-tub if you have space. Adding one to your holiday home is likely to increase its desirability. We did not have the space however we fitted a large wide bath with a luxury overhead rain shower, it gets most of the glowing comments in our guest book.

• Providing a welcome pack including locally sourced fresh products, a bottle of wine and the local paper (with a 'what's on' guide) is a nice touch. We also leave a few postcards. Since the cottage is in Cornwall, guests also receive a Cornish Cream Tea of scones, clotted cream and jam which helps make guests' arrival more welcoming, easier and creates a lasting impression. If you can accommodate guest dietary preferences in this that will also illustrate your willingness to understand their needs. It's amazing how much thoughtful touches like these can increase the likelihood of your guests re-booking or recommending your property to others.

• Most holiday makers expect the same mod cons they'd use at home, so a washing machine, dishwasher, microwave and free Wi-Fi are pretty essential, and a tumble dryer a bonus. You may also want to consider a coffee machine, sandwich toaster, slow cooker and other technology such as a DVD/Bluray player and Xbox.

I bought a Sony Blu-Ray and DVD player which has been perfect, no complaints from the guests, easy to use and takes up little space. I bought it from Amazon and this link takes you to the newer release of the same model. You may find something here more suitable, I just went for the simpler less expensive model.
We don't provide a sandwich toaster but the toaster makes 4 slices at once, we've had it since 2010 and it's still working fine, looks new, just remember to empty the crumb trays every week.
For coffee, we provide two types of coffee percolators rather than a larger machine with capsules. The most popular which works best on gas or induction hobs is this Giannini caffettiera or this one by Bialletti, if you want to know why, you can read another of my blogs at "So you want to live in Italy".