Multilingual guest communication for short lets
Updated 14.09.2026
Almost one arrival in two in Puglia comes from abroad. This is not a matter of politeness: the language you answer in, and above all how fast you answer, feed into where your listing ranks and into the review the guest will leave.
- Who actually writes to you
- The twenty-four hours that count
- Communication is its own score in the review
- Messages arrive from five different places
- Why copy-pasting into a translator is not enough
- The messages that are really needed
- The questions come in the evening
- How Chilloso solves it
- Frequently asked questions
Who actually writes to you
In 2025 Puglia recorded about 6.7 million arrivals. Arrivals from abroad grew by twenty-five per cent and account for forty-five per cent of the total; tourist lets grew more than any other form of hospitality, up twenty-eight per cent.
The markets writing to you, in order: France, Germany, the United States, then Poland, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium. That is not one foreign language: it is seven or eight.
The twenty-four hours that count
Airbnb asks hosts to reply within 24 hours and measures how often they manage it: that is the response rate, and only the reply to the guest's first message counts, not the ones after it.
That number is not a statistical curiosity. It is one of the four Superhost requirements, alongside at least ten stays a year, a cancellation rate below one per cent and an average of at least 4.8 stars. The threshold is ninety per cent.
The arithmetic is unforgiving: if you receive thirty first messages in a year and four of them slip past twenty-four hours, you are below the line. Four evenings are enough — evenings when you saw the message late and did not know what to write because it was in Dutch.
Communication is its own score in the review
At the end of the stay the guest does not give a single mark. They also score communication, and that score feeds the average that decides how visible your listing is. Below a certain average the platforms show the listing further down, and a loop closes on itself: less visibility, fewer bookings, fewer new reviews to lift the average.
A message written in Italian to a German guest is not rude: it simply does not help. And a guest who reports a problem during the stay and gets no answer is the most frequent cause of a bad review — more than the mattress, more than the noise.
Messages arrive from five different places
Here is the part nobody mentions when explaining how to rent out a house: the guest does not write in one place.
- In the platform's internal message, which you only read if you open that app.
- By email, often to an alias address the platform generates and nobody checks.
- On WhatsApp, if they somehow got your number.
- Through your own website form, if you have one.
- On the phone, usually at the worst possible moment.
Five places, one person. And if you have more than one house, multiply it.
Why copy-pasting into a translator is not enough
A machine translator gets the meaning and fails exactly where it costs: numbers, times, street names, the key box code. A translated street name is a street the guest cannot find. A time that becomes ambiguous is a phone call at eleven at night.
Then there is register. German distinguishes Sie from du, French vous from tu. A translator picks for you, and getting that wrong with a guest in their sixties is noticed immediately.
And finally time: copy, paste, re-read, reply. Two minutes a message, times twenty messages a booking, is an evening a week.
The messages that are really needed
Most of the questions you get could be avoided. They are always the same ones, and you can get ahead of them.
| When | What the guest needs |
|---|---|
| Right after booking | a human confirmation, not just the platform's |
| Two days before | how to get there, where to park, from what time they can enter |
| On arrival day | the last stretch of road, the code, the number to call |
| During the stay | a quick answer when something is wrong |
| On departure | how to leave the house, and an invitation to book directly next time |
Five messages, always the same, for every guest. In seven languages.
The questions come in the evening
The flight is delayed at eleven at night. The key box will not open at seven in the morning. The barbecue question arrives on Sunday. Someone renting out a house has no office hours, and someone renting out five gets dozens of messages a day.
This is where the response rate is lost: not through carelessness, but because nobody can cover seven languages around the clock.
Czy przy domu jest możliwość grillowania?
Is there somewhere to barbecue at the house?
Yes, of course. The outdoor barbecue is available to you at any time, the olive wood is under the stairs.
Tak, oczywiście. Grill zewnętrzny jest do Państwa dyspozycji o każdej porze, drewno oliwne znajduje się pod schodami.
You read and write in your language. The guest reads and writes in theirs.
How Chilloso solves it
The message arrives in the guest's language and you read it in yours, line under line. You answer in your language — English, Italian, whatever it is — and it goes out translated into theirs. You copy nothing into any translator.
Everything in a single thread per guest: what came from the platform, the email, the WhatsApp message, sit one under the other, each marked with where it came from. The reply goes out through the same channel the guest used, without you having to remember it. Beside the thread you have their booking: arrival, departure, nights, how many people, what language they speak.
And if you have several houses you do not switch programs: the threads of all properties sit in the same list.
Do you need more information?