The fact sheet every hotel and homestay should keep

Most questions a hotel or homestay gets are the same handful, asked again and again. What’s the rate for a double? What time is check-in? Do I need a permit? How do I reach you from the station?

The answers usually live in the owner’s head. When the owner is busy, asleep or away, a cousin or a new staff member answers instead, and the guest hears something slightly different. A rate gets rounded. A check-in time gets guessed. Nobody means any harm, but the guest remembers.

The fix is old-fashioned: write the answers down once, in one place, and have everyone answer from that page. We call it a fact sheet.

Why write it down

• Every staff member gives the same answer, on any day.
• New staff learn the place faster.
• You find the gaps: questions nobody ever agreed an answer to.
• When something changes, you change it in one place.

The nine parts

This is the list we use. Copy it into a notebook, a Google Doc or a spreadsheet, and fill it in.

1. Rooms and rates. Each room type, how many it sleeps, and its rate in full: per room or per person, with or without breakfast, and the cost of an extra bed. Write festival rates, for Hornbill or anything else, as a separate list. Avoid “from” and “around”: a guest who hears a range tends to remember the lower number.
2. Check-in and check-out. The times, what happens if someone arrives late at night, and whether early check-in or late check-out is possible, and on what terms.
3. Getting here. Directions from where guests actually arrive, such as the railway station or the airport in Dimapur. Add a landmark, whether a car can reach the door, where to park, and whether you can arrange a taxi.
4. Food. Which meals you serve, at what times, whether they are included in the rate, and whether you can cook vegetarian food on request.
5. Facilities. Hot water, Wi-Fi, power backup, heating, parking, laundry. Write what you have, and be honest about what you don’t. “Hot water in the morning and evening” is more useful than “hot water”.
6. House rules. Quiet hours, the time the gate closes, smoking, alcohol, pets and visitors. Short and plain.
7. Payment. Cash, UPI, card or bank transfer. Whether you take an advance, and when the balance is due. Write your cancellation rule here too: what happens to the advance if a guest cancels, and by when. If it depends on the case, say who decides.
8. Inner Line Permit. Guests from outside Nagaland ask about it, and it is easy to leave off the list. Write what you tell guests: whether they need one, where to apply, and whether you help with it. Check it against the official source before you write it, and again when the rules change.
9. Contact. Who to call or message, on which number, and at what hours. Who to try if that person does not answer.

Keep it current

• Put the date at the top, and change it every time you edit.
• Read it through before the busy season, and before Hornbill if you take festival guests.
• Keep one copy. When there are three, they drift apart.
• Tell your staff when something changes.

Where the same sheet goes next

A fact sheet is useful on its own, pinned behind the desk or saved on the staff phone. It also feeds everything else guests see.

Your website can carry the same rooms, photos and directions for guests planning a trip. You can update a website by editing a spreadsheet, the way the Eden Academy office in Mokokchung posts its notices. If we look after your site on our care plan, small changes such as a new rate are done within two working days.

Reception, the WhatsApp assistant we are building for hotels and homestays, is designed around this same sheet. It is in development, and no business uses it yet. It is built to answer guests’ questions about rates, check-in times, directions, house rules and the Inner Line Permit only from what you write in it, which is one more reason to write each rate exactly as you would say it. It is also built to note the dates, number of guests and room a guest asks about, for you to confirm. It cannot see your booking calendar and is instructed never to confirm that a room is free. Questions about refunds, cancellations and complaints are designed to go to you.

We meet clients in person in Dimapur, Kohima and Mokokchung. If you would like a hand writing yours, message us on WhatsApp.