The last ten minutes before a guest arrives: a villa checklist

A villa arrival checklist is a short written list your team walks through in the last ten minutes before a guest arrives, in the order the guest will see the house: gate, entrance, living area, pool, bedrooms, bathrooms. It exists because the people who see a villa every day stop seeing its small faults. Guests see everything for the first time.

By IndaVillas Published 14 November 2026 5 minute read

Illustrative image.

Why does a villa team miss what a guest sees?

A villa team misses small faults because it sees the villa every day. A crease in the bed cover, a dim bulb or a smudge on the glass door becomes part of the background for anyone who walks past it each morning. A guest walks in once, rested or tired, and notices all of it in the first minute.

Guests never mention the crease you fixed. They mention the one you missed. A written checklist replaces memory with a routine, so the standard no longer depends on who is on shift or how busy the day was.

The ten minute arrival checklist

The checklist follows the guest’s path through the house, so nothing is checked twice and nothing is skipped. In a villa with five or more bedrooms, split it between two people: one takes the shared areas, the other takes the bedrooms and bathrooms.

Gate and entrance

Gate opens smoothly and the entrance light worksThe first thing a guest touches should not stick.
Path swept, no shoes, tools or bins in sightStand where the car stops and look.

Living and dining

Cushions straight, throws folded, surfaces clearOne style for every sofa, every time.
Glass doors and tables free of marksCheck against the light, where smudges show.
Air conditioning or fans already runningThe room should be cool when the door opens, not ten minutes later.

Pool and garden

Pool surface clear of leavesSkim again even if it was done this morning.
Loungers in line, cushions dry, towels rolled the same wayCount one towel per guest.
No hoses, nets or cleaning buckets left outEquipment goes back to the store room.

Each bedroom

Bed cover flat, pillows matchedLook from the doorway, where the guest first sees it.
Both bedside lamps switch onReplace a dead bulb now, not after the guest reports it.
Wardrobe opened and aired, hangers in placeA closed wardrobe holds stale air.
Curtains set the same in every roomOpen for a day arrival, closed with lamps on for a night arrival.

Each bathroom

Mirror, taps and glass dry and free of marksWater spots read as not cleaned.
Soap, shampoo and paper fullNever half a bottle for a new guest.
No hair on the floor or in the drainEasy to miss and hard to forgive. Look twice.

Last look

Welcome note and wifi card in the same place as alwaysGuests should not have to ask for the password.
Staff bags, phones and chargers out of guest areasThe house should look ready, not recently worked in.

How to run the checklist

The checklist only works if one named person owns it for each arrival. Four rules keep it from fading after the first month.

Name the checker. One person per arrival is responsible, and it should not be the person who cleaned that room. A second pair of eyes is the whole point.
Start after cleaning ends. The checklist is a second look. If the team is still cleaning ten minutes before arrival, the schedule is the problem, not the list.
Tick it and send proof. Print the list or keep it on a phone. Send one photo of each bedroom to the team chat when it is done.
Decide what happens to a fault. If it takes under two minutes, fix it. If not, tell the guest on arrival and give a time. A fault a guest was told about lands very differently from one they find.

Walk the villa the way a guest does

Once a month, someone who does not work in the villa every day should arrive as a guest would. Come by car at the usual arrival time, carry a bag, and use only the arrival message to find the gate and get in.

Then sit on the sofa, lie on a bed, run a shower and connect to the wifi from the furthest room. Write down what you notice in the first five minutes, before your eyes adjust. That list is what the next guest will see. The fuller version of this walk is in where 5 star villa reviews come from.

Is ten minutes per arrival worth it?

Ten minutes per arrival is small against what reviews are worth. Airbnb asks each guest to rate cleanliness and accuracy alongside their overall rating, and both are judged in the first minutes of a stay.

In AirDNA data for the 12 months to October 2026, Bali villas with 5 or more bedrooms rated 4.85 or higher earned a median of $65,900. Villas rated under 4.5 earned $30,500. A rating alone does not double revenue, but a team that checks the villa before every arrival tends to earn the rating and the bookings together. See the full rating and revenue data.

Questions owners ask

Who should do the final check?

The villa manager or the most senior person on shift, and never the person who prepared the room being checked. People do not see their own misses.

Should the checklist be on paper or on a phone?

Either works if it is ticked every time. Paper on a clipboard is harder to skip and needs no signal. A phone makes it easy to send photos as proof. Many teams use paper for the walk and one group chat for the photos.

Does IndaVillas run this checklist for the owner?

No. Arrivals and cleaning stay with your own team. We work on the commercial side: the listing, photography, advertising, pricing and guest communication. Both of our plans include hospitality training for your staff and a cleaning schedule tool synced with bookings, so the team knows when each arrival is due. The pricing page lists what each plan covers.

Sources and method

Written by IndaVillas. We run the commercial side of 5+ bedroom villas in Bali: rate strategy, listings, photography, distribution and guest communication, while the owner’s team runs the house. Market figures on this blog come from our own analysis of AirDNA data. Spotted an error? Email [email protected].