From mini-bar snacks to surf board rentals…

HonorTab lets you supercharge your vacation home by selling your guests premium items directly from your rental.

Setting up your first HonorTab

HonorTab is a great way to improve your guest’s stay by offering convenient items for them to purchase. To help you get started making your first HonorTab we’ve compiled a list of helpful tips and recommendations. This guide will help you level-up your guests experience, as well as help you make more money.

Know Your Space; Know Your Guests.

Knowing your space and your audience is so important in creating a successful HonorTab set up. Every space is different, and requires different solutions. Figuring out your space and what you can offer is important in making sure that your guest has a great experience.

Here are a few suggestions for different home types:

Single Room/Studio Apartment:

small studio

In a single room apartment you want to make sure that you don’t completely overwhelm your guest with an experience akin to flying on a budget airline that charges for you for everything. A good way to avoid this is to consolidate your HonorTab set up into a smaller space. In the above photo, the host dedicated one corner of their small listing for an HonorTab setup.

In the fridge and inside the desk’s open cabinet are convenient HonorTab items such as beverages, dry snacks, and toiletries. We highly recommend this type of setup for single room/ studio apartment listings.

Here’s a closer-up of another HonorTab fridge:

htfridgecloseup

You can see that only some items have stickers on them. Being clear up-front about what’s for sale and what’s not helps prevent any unnecessary confusion between you and your guest. Having plenty of low-cost or free items, such as bottled water and k-cup coffee pods, is a must for an HonorTab to be successful.

Here is a link to a great mini-fridge that is lockable.

Multi-Bedroom Home

Having a bigger listing means that you can spread out the guest’s exposure to HonorTab in your listing. Having different rooms allows you to present different HonorTab experiences to your guest. So for instance, instead of consolidating into a small corner, you might have some items in the fridge, another setup in the bathroom, and a third in the bedroom. Check out the pictures below to get an idea:

gtfridge3

Having a larger refrigerator means that you can stock more goods and offer a better variety to cater towards your guests varying needs. Just remember to make it very clear to your guests what is free and what’s not.

The image below is a bathroom drawer that a HonorTab host has stocked for their guests. It includes commonly forgotten toiletries such as toothpaste, mouth wash, his/hers razors, and toothbrushes. Many guests mention the bathroom HonorTab in their reviews and go on about how convenient it is. Having a picture like this in their profile listing makes the guest feel at ease and more comfortable when making their travel arrangements. If you want to for extra credit, add some feminine products such as makeup-remover. These little details greatly amplify the guests experience.

htbathroom

 

Check out this dedicated HonorTab chest freezer! A lot of guests – especially if your location is more remote – might just want to spend a night in relaxing and watching Netflix. What better way to accommodate their relaxing evening than by having tasty goods on hand. One of HonorTab’s most transacted items are pints of ice cream. People love small portioned ice-cream!

 

HonorTab Freezer

 What to stock your HonorTab with

Not all HonorTabs are the same, just like not all of your guests are the same. For those of you who have been hosting an Airbnb for a length of time, you’ll probably have begun to observe that your property attracts a certain demographic. Different locations, different price ranges, different styles of home — they all appeal to different types of people, so your Airbnb guests may be wildly different from another host’s.

One of the best ways to improve your guests’s experience is by catering to their tastes through what you provide on your HonorTab.

I’ve built 3 HonorTabs below that cater to different types of Airbnb guests. Each HonorTab setup was built intentionally from Host feedback on what they know from past experience that their guests tend to enjoy.

The Somewhat-Healthy-Junk-Food HonorTab

somewhathealthyjunkfoodhonortabThis HonorTab was put together for an Airbnb host who had more college-aged visitors. He noticed from his guests’s food choices that they cared less about fancy artisan snacks, and more about consuming liquids and calories after a long night out. Cost was also a concern for them, so having more accessible, affordable snacks was ideal.

The Middle-of-the-Road HonorTab

ZIHxO37This HonorTab was made for a slightly more thoughtful consumer. It includes some regular breakfast options as well as some healthy dried fruits, a fancy chocolate bar, and Ginger Beer. It’s a healthy mix of familiar snack food and some slightly more unique items for your guest to try.

The Specialty-Item HonorTab

jKIQNYy

This last HonorTab was specifically crafted for a Home that is regularly visited by guests who enjoy very intentional types of food. There is an equal selection of Vegan and Gluten Free snacks as well as specialty drinks that the Host has felt that their types of guests would enjoy.

Each of the HonorTabs above serve a different purpose and were made with different groups of people in mind. It’s important to remember that not all guests are the same and that their tastes vary. Over time it will become easy to see which items are a hit with your guest and which are not. The rule of thumb is that if, after a few guests go through your Airbnb , no one has touched a snack item on your HonorTab, it’s probably a dud.

Introducing HonorTab to your Guests

Introducing your guest to HonorTab should happen well before your guest steps into your home. One of the biggest factors in getting your guest to use and honor their tab is familiarity with how HonorTab works. As a host it is your job to introduce HonorTab to your guest.

1) The very first step to making HonorTab work for you is uploading your menu to your listing profile. If you are using Airbnb you can upload it directly from the HonorTab app, if not, then you can upload it manually by requesting a menu image.

You can do so by going to Share Menu -> Upload to Airbnb.

Here’s an example image of what your Menu photo looks like:

menuimage1

2) When a guest requests a booking they have already been exposed to the concept of HonorTab by going through your photos. Most guests are curious and excited about the amenities you have to offer but don’t know anything about the mechanics of how HonorTab works. So to them it’s still a vague concept that they are excited to try.

Once the booking is accepted, Airbnb allows you to send website information. Before the booking is accepted it shows up as “sensitive content hidden.” Now is the time to send them a shareable URL link to your HonorTab setup.

You can share your menu in two ways:

share menu

1) The most common way is to share the url of your menu to your guest by copying and pasting your share menu url into a private message. Here’s an example message:

Hi Luke,

I’m so glad that you chose to stay with us at the Bungalow for a few days. In case you didn’t see in our listing photos, we utilize a service called HonorTab to provide our guests with additional amenities such as premium snacks, drinks, toiletries, and some other freebies.

Here’s a link to the full menu: http://ht1.us/#ERHJT. There’s a link to install the app on the bottom of the page. If you decided to use HonorTab you can use this coupon code “HTD492” to get $5 off your tab. If there are any special items that you would like available during your stay let us know an we’ll try our best to add them to our Menu.

Looking forward to your stay!
Thanks!

-John Smith

2) If you have their email address you can invite them via the “Invite Guests” button. This will send an email to your guests with a link to your share menu URL included.

One of the convenient things about HonorTab is that once a guest checks into your Menu, you can easily charge them for items that they use in case they forget to check out (they have a chance to review the charges).  So it’s important to get your guests to at least check in to HonorTab so you know you will be paid for items they may use.

 

Helping Your Guests Close Their Tab

Nothing says “forget it” like a complicated system. Your job is to make it as easy as possible for your guests close out their tab. We’ve put together a ton of resources to help your guest navigate HonorTab and feel comfortable using it.

1) Menu Tracker/Print Menu

The Menu Tracker is a list of all the items that are available on your HonorTab Menu that allows your guests to keep track of what they use during their stay. Although this can also be done in the app, putting a physical version somewhere visible helps guests to remember and offers another option. Placing this in a convenient place such as on your fridge with a pen nearby greatly increases the Honor Rate of your tab. It reduces the friction associated getting guests to Honor their tab because it doesn’t require them to open up an app every time they decide to use an item from your Menu.

Here is an example Menu tracker:

htMenuTrackerExample

The Menu Tracker is a dynamic menu that is generated every time you save your menu. You can access it by clicking the “Print Menu” button in the HonorTab app and it will automatically be emailed to you.

In addition to sending you a copy of your Menu Tracker, you’ll receive a copy of a printable menu image that you can print and attach to your refrigerator like this:

GET PRINT MENU IMAGE ON FRIDGE

2) Coupon Codes

Coupons are awesome – they are the easiest way to get your guest to check into your tab and use your products. Making a coupon is straight forward. Simple click on the Coupons tab, enter the dollar amount that you’d like to make, and click Add. Each coupon code you make generates a coupon code that you can then share with your guest. Coupons are very powerful in getting your guests to us your HonorTab. Consider extending a $5 coupon to your guests in person or via email to help encourage your guests to check into your tab.

makeCouponCode

 

Closing Your Guest’s Tab

Sometimes you’ll have guests that check in and forget to close out their tab. If that happens, don’t sweat. As long as they checked into your HonorTab you can retroactively charge them for any items they used, either by counting missing inventory, or by looking at the Menu Tracker. Once a guest checks in you can check out on their behalf pretty easily by going to your Menu via the HT app and selecting View Guests. Select the active guest, and then add the items they used to their tab and check them out.

As usual, your guest will have 48 hours to review the charges before they are finalized so make sure that you charge them correctly.

Here’s what a snapshot checking out the guest looks like:

hostCloseGuestTab

Finishing Up

Building your HonorTab requires a fine balance of offering fairly priced convenient items as well as introducing the concept of HonorTab to your guests. Just like all guests, every rental is completely different. Try to build an all-inclusive HonorTab that your guests will love. If your guests don’t seem interested in your items consider asking them what items they think, that you could have available for purchase, would make their stay more enjoyable.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected]. We’d be more than happy to brainstorm ideas with you and help you make the best HonorTab possible. Good luck!

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