A daily arrivals routine for guesthouses and small hotels
Most problems at check-in could have been spotted that morning: a room not ready, a deposit not paid, a guest arriving at midnight with nobody on the desk. A fifteen-minute routine each morning catches nearly all of them.
When to do it
First thing, before housekeeping starts, so anything you find can change the cleaning order. Allow fifteen minutes on a normal day and thirty on a busy changeover day.
The checklist
Work through today’s arrivals one by one, then glance at tomorrow.
For each arrival today
- Room assigned and correct. Right room type, right number of beds, any accessibility needs met.
- Arrival time known. If not, message the guest now. “What time do you expect to arrive?” is the single most useful question in a small hotel.
- Payment status clear. Deposit received, balance due, or OTA-collected. Note anything to collect at check-in.
- Special requests noted. Cot, early check-in, airport pickup, birthday, dietary needs. Write them where housekeeping and the breakfast team will see them.
- Late arrival plan. If the guest arrives after the desk closes, send self check-in instructions today, not at 21:00.
Across all arrivals
- Count rooms needed against rooms available. If arrivals plus stayovers exceed your rooms, you have a double booking. Better found at 8:30 than at 15:00. See why calendar sync causes double bookings.
- Set the cleaning order. Mark arrival times on your housekeeping board so the earliest arrivals’ rooms are cleaned first.
Tomorrow, quickly
- Any arrival without contact details or an arrival time? Message them today.
- Any large group or long stay? Check the room allocation now, while there’s time to move things.
Messages worth sending
Three short messages prevent most check-in friction. Keep them as templates and personalise the first line.
The day before arrival: confirm the dates, ask for their arrival time, and include the address with a map link and parking or transport tips.
The morning of arrival, for late arrivals: how to get in, where the key is, the Wi-Fi password and a phone number that will be answered.
The evening of arrival: a one-line “Is everything alright with your room?”. It catches small problems before they become reviews.
Send them on the channel the guest uses: email, WhatsApp, Zalo or the OTA’s message system. A message they read beats one they don’t.
Keeping it light
The routine only works if it happens every day, so keep it short. If a check takes too long every morning, that’s a sign to fix it at the source. Ask for the arrival time on the booking form, for example, so you don’t have to chase it.
Most of this checklist comes from the booking data you already have. Pulling it together into one screen each morning, with the arrival times, payment status and requests side by side, is what we’re building into Hotel & Tour Ops.