Eight thirty, and a guest is coeliac
A couple sits down to breakfast. One of them says, apologetically, that she is coeliac and cannot have ordinary bread or sausages. She mentioned it when she booked, she says. You look back later and find it in a Booking.com message you read three weeks ago on your phone while hanging out washing, and forgot.
You do your best: eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, no toast. It is fine, but it is not the breakfast you would have made if you had known, and she clearly feels like a nuisance. The next week a vegan couple arrives, and the week after a guest with a nut allergy asks about your homemade granola.
Why you find out too late
Guests tell you about dietary needs in whatever way occurs to them, if they tell you at all.
- OTA bookings have a special requests box whose contents are easy to miss.
- Messages through Booking.com or Airbnb arrive in their apps, not with your diary.
- Direct bookers mention it in an email weeks before the stay.
- Many guests do not mention it at all, assuming they will ask on the morning.
- Nobody asks every guest in the same way before they arrive.
The information you need to shop and plan exists, but it is scattered or never collected.
What finding out late costs
The guest feels awkward, and you feel caught out. A guest with a serious allergy has to ask detailed questions at the table while you try to remember what is in everything. For guests with coeliac disease, vegans and others, a B&B that got it right is a place they recommend widely and return to, because it is rarer than it should be.
It also costs you. Last-minute trips to the shop, or a breakfast that is less than you would like it to be, on the morning that decides many reviews.
In a village or on an island, a last-minute trip to the shop may not even be possible. The nearest place with gluten-free bread or oat milk might be half an hour away, and you are the only person who can cook breakfast. Knowing in advance is the difference between a proper breakfast and an apology.
How we build pre-arrival dietary questions
- A few days before arrival, every guest receives a short message with a link, whether they booked direct, through Booking.com, Airbnb or anywhere else. For OTA bookings, the message is sent through the OTA's messaging where needed.
- The form asks each guest in the party about dietary needs and allergies, with common options to tick and a box for anything else.
- Answers are stored with the booking in your booking system or calendar, and anything mentioned in earlier messages is added to the same place.
- A few days ahead, you get a list of upcoming guests with dietary needs, so you can shop.
- The breakfast list for each morning shows dietary needs next to each table.
- Returning guests' needs are remembered, and the form asks them to confirm rather than start again.
| Guest | Told you | Shows on |
|---|---|---|
| Coeliac, via Booking.com message | Three weeks before | Shopping list and breakfast list |
| Vegan couple, direct booking | In the pre-arrival form | Shopping list and breakfast list |
| Nut allergy | In the pre-arrival form | Breakfast list, flagged |
| No needs | Form completed | Nothing extra |
The form collects information. How you handle allergies in your kitchen is your own decision, and the form does not give guests any promise on your behalf unless you write one.
A week of breakfasts with no surprises
On Tuesday, your list shows that Thursday's guests include a coeliac and a vegan. You buy gluten-free bread and a vegan sausage alternative when you shop on Wednesday. On Thursday, both breakfasts come out as good as everyone else's. The coeliac guest mentions it in her review.
Over a season you get a sense of what to keep in the freezer, and which guests have which needs when they return.
Is this happening at your breakfast table?
- Guests tell you about dietary needs at breakfast.
- Dietary requests arrive in OTA messages that you miss.
- You make last-minute trips to the shop for special diets.
- You do not ask every guest about dietary needs before they arrive.
- Returning guests have to tell you their needs again.