EN
ES
Airbnb Breakfast: What Hosts Should Know About Serving Food
Serving breakfast is a great way for Airbnb hosts to make their guests feel welcome. Here is the scoop on how to serve breakfast so that you can decide if it is the right option for your business.
Key Takeaways:
- Unlike the name Airbnb suggests, hosts have the option to serve breakfast or not.
- If you plan on offering breakfast to your guests, keep it simple. A bagel with cream cheese and a glass of orange juice, toast with cheese, and a selection of local preserves can be a wonderful meal.
- If you do decide to serve breakfast, ask your guests about any food allergies and their schedule for the next morning.
Hosts are continuously looking for ways to offer a better deal and experience to guests. While a discounted rate will make guests feel that they’re getting better value, it doesn’t improve the overall guest experience.
Offering an Airbnb breakfast ticks both boxes. It’s a great way to make your Airbnb guests feel welcome, but it does come along with some potential challenges.
Here is the scoop on how to offer breakfast to your guests. From popular Airbnb breakfast ideas to communication and cooking skills needed to make this work, continue reading to find out if it is the right option for your Airbnb business.
Do I need to serve breakfast?
While Airbnb is short for Airbed and Breakfast (its original name), hosts are not obligated to serve breakfast. The decision as to whether or not you should serve breakfast really comes down to the type of experience that you want to provide as an Airbnb host.
Also, as Airbnb has become a household name, most guests know that they shouldn’t expect breakfast (or an air mattress which was standard for the co-founders’ first guests).
Some hosts feel that their nightly rate is too low or that the type of guests they target won’t appreciate breakfast and leave out breakfast options altogether. For example, if your Airbnb guests are traveling for leisure, then they likely won’t care much about eating at your place. That’s because they’ve really come to check out all of that your area has to offer, including the restaurants. However, if your property attracts a lot of business travelers, then they'll find having Airbnb breakfast to be a time-saving and convenient benefit of staying at your property.
Others use their amenities to decide which level of breakfast service to offer. For example, if your rental is a small apartment, you can stick to snacks like granola bars, fresh fruit, and orange juice.
On the other hand, if you rent out a room in your house and you feel confident in your cooking skills, you can offer guests eggs and toast. Alternatively, you can offer a continental breakfast in the morning. Think of a breakfast buffet of cereal, milk, fresh fruit, coffee, tea, and fruit juice.
What Are Some Popular Airbnb Breakfast Ideas?
The best ideas for Airbnb breakfast really depend on your location. Also, it might be a better idea to just ask your guests. In some cases, a standard Western continental breakfast works.
However, if these foods aren’t typical for your region, then you should go with what you think your guests might eat. If your property attracts a lot of tourists, then your Airbnb breakfast might consist of local fare in order to deliver a truly immersive cultural experience for your guests.
The bottom line is that whatever you offer to your Airbnb guests, it shouldn’t take too much effort (or advanced cooking skills) on your part to prepare. Consider diversifying your breakfast offerings to accommodate guests with dietary restrictions or different food preferences.
For instance, subscribing to a service like Green Chef vegan meal delivery can provide you with ready-to-prepare meal kits. This option not only shows consideration for vegan guests but also ensures that you are not overwhelmed with preparing something entirely new.
In addition, you always want to make sure that the food you are offering looks fresh and professionally prepared. You can, for example, order some local cooking services if you have those in your area or buy packaged items from the local cafe or market that you can serve as an Airbnb breakfast. Unless your guests are comfortable with you making food for them, save your homemade creations for your own family and friends.
How Do I Receive Payment From Guests for the Breakfast Service?
When a guest makes an inquiry or request, you can use the special offer function to add the cost of the Airbnb breakfast service to the total price of the reservation. However, to make things simple, it would probably be best to just include the cost of the Airbnb breakfast service in your overall listing price from the beginning.
This way, your guests view it as a “free breakfast”, while they technically still pay for the food regardless of whether they decide to eat it or not. Then, you also don’t have to worry about having to make an alteration or resolution request to include the extra fee after the guest has already booked your property.
What Are the Problems That Hosts May Face When Serving Meals?
Aside from figuring out what a competitive rate would be, hosts also encounter the following challenges when there’s breakfast included:
Cuisine preferences
It can be difficult to gauge whether or not the breakfast options will satisfy your guests’ tastes. This can be an even bigger problem if your guests are arriving from foreign countries where your local cuisine might be quite different from what they are used to.
An easy rule to follow is to stick to a simple breakfast. You can choose breakfast foods that are similar to what a guest might receive when they stay at a local hotel.
Many hosts who provide breakfast as an option also let guests know upfront via a private message what’s on the menu the next morning so that there are no surprises. Alternatively, if you plan to serve the same breakfast items each morning, you can include it in your listing description.
Food allergies
Food allergies can be a serious concern for potential guests as it can have fatal consequences for some. As a result, you need to make sure that you are aware of any and all food allergies your guests might have. If you plan to serve breakfast, this could be a major risk that might make you want to reconsider offering breakfast.
Scheduling concerns
Your guests’ schedule might not align with your own or what you think are typical hours for eating breakfast. Therefore, don’t make your guests feel like they are forced to sit down for breakfast. Instead, an easy workaround to scheduling issues is to ensure that there are self-serve options, like granola bars, muffins, fresh fruit, etc., available so that guests can choose to eat breakfast when they want to.
FAQs
- What can you put in a breakfast gift basket?
Non-perishable food items like instant oatmeal variety packs, granola bars, a box of shelf-stable whole milk, and coffee/tea/hot chocolate sachets can be placed to create a breakfast-themed gift basket. It can be a good alternative to a welcome basket. This way, guests don’t have to worry about breakfast on their first morning, if you don’t want to serve breakfast.
- Must Airbnbs provide breakfast?
It depends on the host. Some listings are traditional bed and breakfast establishments where guests will book a room in a house and be served breakfast, while others are listings where guests will have access to the whole house or apartment with basic amenities like a fridge and coffee maker so that they can prepare their own breakfast.
- How can you manage food allergies for guests?
Keeping guests with food allergies safe requires communication, planning and strict hygiene during food prep, cooking, serving, and cleaning. Here are some tips and rules:
- Before check-in, ask guests in a private message if they have any allergies
- Know all the ingredients in every dish (or food item in your welcome basket) and share the ingredient list with guests
- Offer gluten-free options where possible
- Avoid reusing water or oil
- Remember to clean your grill thoroughly before each stay
