At this stage you’ve invited your newly arrived guests to join you in the living room for tea or coffee to give them a local map with highlights of restaurant locations.
The next 30-40 minutes is going to be the most important few minutes of your guests stay with you. Not only do you get to know whether their preference is for coffee or tea and how they like their beverage (helping you plan at breakfast time tomorrow), but during the course of the conversation, you’ll get an idea of their interests and be able to suggest attractions that will appeal to them and excellent local walks (if they’re walkers).
During the conversation guests receive a map of the town and surrounding area with attractions highlighted and (very importantly) the locations and opening days/times of local restaurants with tips on what to order and what their speciality dishes are.
A fair number of our guests arrive on our island with very little knowledge of the attractions that should not be missed. Some arrive with no knowledge. Imagine having visited a location, eventually departing and discovering that you missed the number one attraction because no-one told you.
In our case, on the Isle of Bute, we have Mount Stuart, an incredible stately mansion which is the family home of our very own marquess (the Marquess of Bute). It’s an astonishing place, unlike most other stately homes. It was built in the 1800s when the 3rd Marquess of Bute was the wealthiest man in the UK having accumulated his wealth out of shipping coal and slate all over the world from Cardiff. The house is a truly incredible showcase of stunning marble combined with playful and imaginative stone-masonry embodying nature and the seasons. The domed ceiling is a marvel and the stunning stained-glass windows encircling beneath it are astonishing in their original depictions of the signs of the zodiac.
Imagine leaving the island and not seeing this one-of-a-kind treasure! Imagine your guests departing your establishment and missing out on a must-see attraction because they were unaware of it!
This 30-40 minute period is critical in your guest gaining insider knowledge that will benefit them tremendously in planning how to spend their time and money for maximum enjoyment in the days they’re going to be in the area before moving on well-satisfied that they’ve made the most of their visit, received excellent value-for-money and made fabulous lasting memories.
This 30–40-minute conversation over tea or coffee is the ultimate ice-breaker. Your guests get to know you, and you get to know your guests. The knowledge you gain from your guests will allow you to tailor your hospitality to ensure they have a wonderful stay. The knowledge your guests gain about you helps them settle in. You’re no longer a stranger to them.
This is also your opportunity to promote any special breakfast dishes you’re proud of or think they’ll enjoy and get a breakfast time out of them. All our guests over the years have been quite happy to agree on a breakfast-time that suits them. They know that food will not have been sitting around in the warmer. It’s cooked fresh and served to them at their chosen time. Scrambled eggs, for example, go from pan to plate to guest within a maximum of 90 seconds. No dried, stale eggs sitting around.
It also gives you the opportunity to stagger breakfasts so that not all guests are arriving in the dining room at the same time. This is particularly important for small establishments like ours. If you already have guests that have agreed to an 8:30am breakfast, you have the chance to steer your new arrivals to a 8:15am or 8:45am time which makes a massive difference to smooth running of the kitchen and prime service in the dining room.
The breakfast menu is on the bed in their guest room. We simply ask that guests study the menu and text us their choice for the following morning by 6pm the night before. This allows us to quickly visit our local supermarket if we’re missing certain ingredients. For example: we don’t permanently have croissants in the house but will get them fresh should a guest request a breakfast choice that requires them.
Again, I cannot stress enough how important the welcome “cuppa” on guest arrival is for ultimate overall guest satisfaction. Don’t pass on the opportunity.
