How to tell your guests what’s happening nearby

By Mark Myles, a short-term rental host in Campbell River, BC

Guests remember a good local recommendation more than almost anything else about a stay. A clean house is expected. Being told about the open-mic night at the brewery down the road, the week it’s on, is not. One guest wrote in her review of our cottage this October:

That line is worth more to us than one about the beds. Here is how we go about recommending local events and things to do, and what we’ve learned.

When guests want suggestions

In our experience, guests want suggestions at two moments: just before they arrive, and shortly after.

• Just before arrival, while they’re still planning. This is where a festival, a show that sells out or a market that’s only on Saturday belongs. Tell them now, or they’ll find out on Sunday. It’s also the best time to send a link, so they arrive already knowing what’s happening on their dates.
• Just after arrival, when they’ve dropped the bags and want dinner and something easy for the first evening.
• When they ask. If they message you, answer that day. A suggestion that arrives after the evening is over is no help.

Where to find out what’s happening this week

The hard part isn’t knowing your town. It’s knowing this week in your town.

Most of what I hear about comes by word of mouth, or from the venues I go to myself. That’s still the best source there is, because it comes with a recommendation attached. But it only covers the places you already know, so it helps to look further. In Campbell River, these are the places that turn up most:

• The town’s own events page. Most towns and cities keep a community events calendar. Ours is on campbellriver.ca. It’s official, but it’s only as good as what people submit to it.
• The local paper and local news. The Campbell River Mirror and CampbellRiverNOW cover openings, exhibitions and one-off events, often with the dates and the details a calendar leaves out.
• The venues themselves. The theatre (for us, the Tidemark), the pubs and breweries that host music, the gallery. A venue’s own page is the most reliable place to find what’s playing there this week.
• The tourism site. Good for seasonal things and the bigger festivals, weaker on what’s happening this Thursday.
• Local radio. Stations still run community calendars, and ours (The Raven) is a good catch-all.
• Parks and the regional district. Trail closures, campground seasons and park notices come from BC Parks and the regional district, not from event listings, and they matter as much as any event.
• Anything seasonal that depends on nature. Here, fishing openings come from Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s notices, and the whale- and bear-watching seasons from the tour operators. These move from year to year.

Check it before you pass it on

A recommendation from you carries your name. Guests trust it more than anything they’d find themselves, so a wrong one costs more. I learned this the easy way. I’d heard about an open-mic night at a local brewery, and somewhere along the line I’d picked up that it started at 6 pm. It started at 7. I hadn’t recommended it to anyone, thankfully. It was just my wife and me, an hour early. If I’d passed it on, it would have been a guest sitting there instead.

So before passing anything on, check four things:

1. It’s this year. Event pages stay up long after the event. A page ranking first for “farmers market Saturday” may be about last season.
2. The date and the time are on the event’s own page. Not what you heard, not a listing site that copied it, and not a calendar entry that only says “Saturday”.
3. It’s still on. Shows sell out, markets close for the season, and trails close for repairs. If it needs tickets, say so.
4. It suits the forecast. A beach walk in a winter storm isn’t a recommendation.

When you send it, include the link. It lets guests check the details themselves, and it means you’re pointing them to the source rather than asking them to take your word for it.

Match it to the season, and to the guest

Campbell River is a seasonal town, and what’s worth recommending changes with it. There are the whale-watching and bear-watching seasons, and the fishing seasons. Summer brings the markets and the open-air shows downtown, with a lot going on. In the fall and winter it moves indoors: shows, concerts and other inside events. Knowing which venue and which website to check depends on the time of year, and the list you’d give a guest in July is no use in November.

Our guests come from all over the world, in every season. Some are Europeans who don’t know the local scene at all; others are Islanders just passing through, who know the island but not this week in this town. Long stay or short, they all want to know what’s happening around them while they’re here.

A first-time visitor wants the things the town is known for. Someone who knows the area wants what’s new or only on this week. If the booking message says why they’re coming, such as fishing, a wedding or a show, lead with that.

How to send it

• In the pre-arrival message: two or three things happening during their dates, each with a link, and nothing more. A list of fifteen reads like a brochure.
• On a card in the rental, for the things that are always there: the restaurants you’d send a friend to, the walks, the grocery store.
• In the guidebook, for what doesn’t change. (What goes in one, and what to leave out, is a guide of its own.)

We send our pre-arrival message two days out, with the check-in details and everything else they need. At the bottom is one line:

PS — Look ahead at local events for when you arrive: aroundthestay.com/g/…

If you’d rather write it out yourself, it can still be short:

Hi Sam, looking forward to having you next weekend. A few things happening while you’re here: the Saturday market runs until 1 pm (link), there’s live music at the brewery on Friday (link), and the river trail is open again after the repairs (link). Rain is forecast on Sunday; the art gallery is a good afternoon.

What not to recommend

• Anything you haven’t checked this week. Leave it out rather than guess.
• A live emergency. A wildfire, a search or a road closure from an accident isn’t a guidebook item. Point guests to the official source for those, and to the emergency number.
• Things you’ve only heard about. If you haven’t been, say so, or check it first. (See the open-mic night above.)

Doing it every week

All of this takes time, and it has to be done again every week, because the week changes. That’s the reason I built Around the Stay. It gives each rental its own page of what’s happening nearby this week: events, markets, trail and park notices, and openings and closures, each linked to where it came from, plus the forecast. It reads the same kinds of sources listed above, checks the dates, drops what has passed, and rebuilds itself every Sunday. I haven’t yet needed to hide anything from ours, but I’m glad I can: anything you wouldn’t recommend can be hidden, and you can pin your own picks. The link never changes, so it can go in a pre-arrival message, a guidebook or a printed card. You can see a live one on the front page.

Around the Stay is free during early access. See the plans or read the questions hosts ask.