Welcoming guests at the house

Before they arrive

Reply to the booking message the same day. Confirm how they get in — you at the gate, a neighbour, a code. Confirm the time: Absolute check-in is 15:00 unless the listing says otherwise. If the path is dark or the village has no street names, send one pin and one landmark. Online check-in should already show you who is coming.

If names do not match the reservation, do not plan a handover. Message Absolute. Guest identity verification is part of AbsoluteCover; a group that arrives as “friends of the guest” is not the welcome you listed.

The house they walk into

Walk the rooms the afternoon before. Beds made with the linen in the photographs. Hot water on. The kitchen as they saw it. Floors you would walk barefoot. A bathroom without the last guest’s bottles. If you use a cleaner, they need enough hours before 15:00 — a same-day 14:00 turnaround is how complaints start.

A note on the table with wifi, rubbish, quiet hours and your number beside Absolute’s is enough. Point to the safety cards if you printed them. Do not invent a welcome speech, a fruit plate or a “local wine” you will not actually leave. What is not on the listing is not a surprise gift — it is a sentence you now have to keep every time.

How they get in

Share the door code or meeting point in the dashboard after the stay is confirmed — not on the public listing, not in a broadcast story. If you will be late, message the guest and Absolute in that thread. A guest who cannot get in is an AbsoluteCover case, not a review you wait for.

If you live on the plot, be where you said at 15:00. Say hello, show the gate and the hot water, then leave them the house you listed. Hovering in the courtyard “in case they need tea” is not hospitality if the listing said the stay is theirs.

The first hour

They remember a working lamp on the path more than a fruit plate you forgot to mention. They remember a door that opens, heat that works in January, and a pin that finds the house after dark. That is most of a five-star stay in the regions — not a hotel lobby and not a speech at the gate.

If something is already wrong when they arrive — no water, a lock that fails, a different house than the photographs — write Absolute the same hour, with photographs. Do not ask them to “see how the night goes” and put it in a review later.

The first evening

Answer messages the same evening when they ask where to buy bread, how to light the stove, or whether the marshrutka still runs. You do not have to host dinner. You do have to be reachable. Fast, short replies are how five-star stays are run in Gabala, Sheki and Lankaran.

Keep the thread on Absolute Stays. A dispute we cannot see is a dispute we cannot help. If you offer a table or a nearby experience, confirm the hour on the reservation — do not move it only to a private number.

What welcome is not

Welcome is not a cash upgrade at the door, a side booking for a cousin, or a request that they leave a five-star review before they have slept. Welcome is not refusing the next booking because a name looks foreign. House rules and the published guest maximum still apply the hour they arrive.

If you feel unsafe, leave if you can, call 112, then the 24-hour safety line. Then host the next stay as the listing still promises. A guidebook and a clean house do more for the first hour than a new sofa.