7 Things Guests Secretly Judge in an Airbnb (but Rarely Mention)

Most guests won’t tell you everything they’re thinking.

They won’t walk into your Airbnb and announce that the towels feel thin, the mattress is uncomfortable, or that it took them ten minutes to find the WiFi password.

But they’re noticing.

And while some of these details may never make it into a review, they all quietly shape the overall impression guests form during their stay — the kind of impression that decides whether they come back, whether they recommend you to a friend, or whether they simply move on and book somewhere else next time.

The good news? Most of these things are surprisingly easy to improve.

Here are seven things guests judge in almost every Airbnb — without ever saying a word about it.

1. How the Property Smells

First impressions begin before guests notice your furniture, your décor, or your amenities.

A space can look absolutely perfect. But if it doesn’t smell fresh the moment someone walks through the door, guests will notice — and it will set the tone for everything that follows.

The solution isn’t complicated. You don’t need artificial scents or expensive diffusers. What you need is fresh, neutral air with just a light suggestion of cleanliness. Good ventilation between stays, a genuinely clean space, and windows that get opened regularly will take you most of the way there.

If your property is an older building — like our centuries-old stone house in Dalmatia — humidity becomes an additional factor worth thinking about. Once we treated the mold issues properly, the most important thing became consistent airflow: slightly tilted windows between stays, fresh air moving through the rooms regularly. In spaces where circulation is more difficult, a small air purifier can make a noticeable difference.

And if your rental is pet-friendly: pay extra attention. Guests who love animals at home can still be caught off guard by an unfamiliar pet smell in their accommodation. Keeping your cleaning standards high and your house rules consistent is the easiest way to protect both your guests and your property.

2. The Little Signs of Cleanliness

After 15 years in tourism and customer service, I can say with confidence that cleanliness is the thing guests are most sensitive to when arriving at an Airbnb. Often more sensitive than they are in their own homes.

Perfect cleanliness isn’t a bonus. It’s the baseline.

I learned this early — and memorably. Our third set of guests found a single hair in the shower cabin.

One hair.

They didn’t hesitate to mention it. I was mortified. But that tiny oversight became our cleanliness benchmark. From that day on, we inspected every corner more carefully — and guests began regularly praising the apartment’s cleanliness in their reviews.

The thing is, guests rarely evaluate the entire property when they’re forming an impression. They notice a few specific details: dust on top of a wardrobe, fingerprints on a mirror, marks around a light switch — or, of course, that one hair in the bathroom. Even if these things aren’t serious enough for a guest to message you, they’re often present in the background when it comes time to leave a review.

The small things matter more than you’d expect.

3. The Towels

This one is personal for me. I love a thick, fluffy towel — and I genuinely believe that towel quality is one of the easiest ways to make a vacation rental feel more premium without a major investment.

The detail to look for when buying towels is GSM — grams per square metre. For most rentals, 500–700 GSM is the sweet spot: soft and absorbent without being too heavy for warmer climates. Ideally, provide a bath towel, a hand towel, and, if you use them, a washcloth for each guest.

Thin, worn towels make a rental feel tired immediately. Check them regularly for stains — sunscreen in particular leaves stubborn marks — and consider offering dark towels or makeup removal wipes so guests have a better option than your white bath towels.

I chose white towels for our apartment, and I’d make the same choice again. White reads as clean and hotel-like, and crucially, it can be bleached. It makes stain removal and sanitizing between stays so much simpler.

If you want to go one step further: embroidering your property name or initials on the towels adds a small boutique detail that guests genuinely notice and remember. It’s a simple thing that signals care.

4. The Mattress

Guests can forgive a lot of things. A bad night’s sleep is not one of them.

Sleep quality has an outsized effect on how people remember a stay. It shapes everything — their mood the next day, their energy for exploring, how fondly they think of the whole trip. Which is why a quality mattress is one of the things I’d always prioritize when furnishing an Airbnb.

When choosing a mattress, medium-firm to firm tends to work best for vacation rentals. It suits the widest range of guests and holds up better over time. And because a good mattress is a significant investment, protect it — a waterproof mattress protector is worth every cent for preventing stains and extending the life of the mattress.

A few simple habits help too: vacuum it regularly, rotate it every six months, and make sure it has proper support underneath. If replacing the mattress isn’t in the budget right now, a quality mattress topper can be a meaningful temporary improvement.

Guests won’t necessarily notice the protector. But they will absolutely notice a mattress that feels clean, supported, and genuinely comfortable.

5. How Easy It Is to Find Important Information

Guests don’t want to search. They want answers quickly — ideally before they even have to ask.

Working in a tourist agency during high season, I see this from both sides. The volume of questions that come in — about parking, WiFi, check-in, appliances — is significant. And a large part of it is preventable with a bit of thoughtfulness upfront.

Something as simple as a clearly displayed WiFi password — framed nicely, visible from the moment guests walk in — can prevent one of the most common questions hosts receive. That alone makes a difference. But the principle applies to everything: parking instructions, self check-in steps, how the coffee machine works, where the bins are, what time check-out is.

The mistake many hosts make, without realizing it, is assuming guests will figure things out. They won’t. And if they do, they won’t be happy about it.

Try to imagine entering your property for the very first time — from finding the address, to parking, to the front door, to the kitchen on the first morning. Every step where someone might pause or feel uncertain is an opportunity to make things easier.

That said, there’s a balance. I once stayed somewhere that had a little handwritten note on every single surface. Nothing was unclear — but it didn’t feel relaxing either. The goal is clarity, not volume. Keep it to the essentials, present them beautifully, and adjust based on the questions guests actually ask you over time.

6. The Level of Clutter

Guests want enough. They don’t want too much.

There’s good research behind this: clutter increases cortisol levels — the stress hormone. That’s the last thing you want a guest to feel the moment they arrive after a long journey. Aim instead for a space that feels calm, functional, and intentionally put together — decorated with care, but not crowded.

Minimalism doesn’t mean cold. It means thoughtful. A few beautiful objects, carefully chosen, create a better impression than many objects scattered without purpose. You’ll also thank yourself at turnover time when dusting takes half as long.

Don’t forget about storage, either — practical solutions that help guests stay organized during their stay. A luggage rack in the bedroom, a coat stand near the entrance, a shoe rack, somewhere to hang things if there’s no wardrobe. These small additions make it much easier for guests to feel settled and at home.

One more thing worth mentioning: remove personal items. Family photos, religious symbols, personal collections, heavily filled bookshelves — these can make guests feel like they’re intruding on someone else’s private life rather than enjoying their own retreat. Your property should feel welcoming and neutral. Guests want to picture themselves there. Make it easy for them.

7. The Overall Feeling of Care

This is the one guests rarely describe directly. But when they do, it’s the most meaningful thing to read.

The reviews I was always proudest of weren’t the ones praising our furniture or our location. They were the ones where guests mentioned how cared for they felt. That they could sense the place had been thoughtfully prepared. That someone had genuinely wanted them to have a wonderful stay.

Guests notice these things even when they don’t have words for them. The cold drinks in the fridge after a long journey. The ice cream their children discover in the freezer. The local recommendation that turns into the highlight of the trip.

One Easter, our guests arrived to find that every shop in town was closed for the holiday. My husband drove to pick up a few breakfast essentials before they arrived — not a grand gesture, just a practical one. But it solved a problem before it became one. And that, in the end, is often what hospitality really is.

Guests don’t remember every detail of a stay. They remember how the stay made them feel.

A Final Thought

Most guests won’t mention any of these things directly.

But together, they shape the whole experience — the mood, the comfort, and the impression that lingers long after checkout. They’re the difference between a stay that was fine and one that guests genuinely remember and recommend.

Guests rarely judge a stay based on one big thing. More often, it’s dozens of small impressions quietly adding up throughout their visit.

The good news is that improving them rarely requires a major renovation or a significant budget. More often than not, it simply requires paying attention to the things most hosts overlook.

And in hospitality, the things guests remember most are almost always the small ones.

Want to See What Guests Notice First?

Many of the things on this list shape a guest’s impression throughout their stay. But some details start working the moment they walk through the door.

If you’d like to learn what guests notice within the very first hour—and how those early impressions influence their experience—read my next guide:

→ The Airbnb Amenities Guests Notice Within the First Hour