Answering Airbnb guests in Chinese without speaking it

If you host in Bangkok, Phuket, Bali or Kuala Lumpur, a good share of your inbox will arrive in Chinese. Some of it is simplified characters from mainland China, some traditional characters from Taiwan or Hong Kong, and a lot of it is a mix of Chinese and short English fragments. You do not need to read it to answer it well. You do need to understand how these guests tend to write, what they are likely to ask, and where hosts usually go wrong.

Who these guests are

Chinese-speaking guests in Southeast Asia are not one group. Families from the mainland travelling in school holidays, couples from Taiwan on a long weekend, young professionals from Hong Kong, Singapore or Malaysia who switch between Chinese and English mid-sentence, and students on a budget. What they often have in common is thorough planning. The itinerary is usually set before they write to you, and the message is there to confirm details, not to browse.

How they tend to write

• Short and practical. A typical message is one or two lines with a direct question. Long background stories are rare.
• Several messages in a row. One line with a greeting, a second line with the question, a third with a photo or a screenshot. Treat the burst as one question.
• Polite but efficient. Formality is lighter than in Japanese or Korean, but a greeting and a thank you are expected. "你好" (hello) at the start of a first message is normal and polite.
• Mixed language. "你好, check-in 几点?" is a common shape. The guest is comfortable with English keywords and expects you to handle the rest.
• Reply speed. Guests from mainland China tend to be used to near instant replies from apps at home and often expect something similar. A reply within a few minutes feels normal; an hour feels slow; overnight silence feels like a problem.
• Preferred apps. WeChat for everything at home. On Airbnb, they stay in the Airbnb app, but many will ask for a WeChat ID early. You can politely keep them on the platform; it protects both of you.

The questions they ask most

The topics overlap with every other nationality, with a few that come up more often:

1. Exact check-in time, and whether they can arrive early after a morning flight.
2. Luggage storage before check-in and after checkout.
3. Whether the building has a key card for the lift and how it works.
4. The address in Thai (or the local language) to show a taxi driver.
5. Where to buy a SIM card, and whether the wifi works with their phones.
6. Whether a child or a grandparent can stay without an extra fee.
7. Nearby food, especially somewhere open late.
8. Whether the apartment is quiet and on a high floor (answer the quiet part; give the exact floor only after booking).

Write those answers once and you have most of your Chinese inbox handled.

Mistakes hosts make

Machine-translating a long English template. A 300-word welcome message pushed through a free translator comes out stiff and sometimes wrong in the places that matter: times, floor numbers, the word for "key card". Shorter is safer. Translate three sentences well rather than thirty badly.

Mixing languages inside one reply. Half a sentence in English and half in Chinese reads as careless. Pick one language for the whole reply, and match the language the guest used.

Getting the register wrong. Chinese guests tend to be forgiving of a slightly formal tone and much less forgiving of a tone that sounds dismissive. Short does not mean curt. A one-word "Yes" with no greeting or closing lands badly.

Repeating "Hi" on every message. Greeting the guest on the first message is right. Greeting them again on the fourth message of the same afternoon reads like a bot. Greet once, then just answer.

Confusing simplified and traditional characters. A guest from Taiwan writing in traditional characters will notice a reply in simplified ones. A good system matches the script the guest used.

Example replies

These are in English so you can judge the tone. The Chinese version should carry the same shape: one greeting on first contact, the fact, a short closing.

First message, pre-booking, asking about early arrival:

Tone note: warm, direct, no promise that depends on the calendar.

Mid-conversation, asking for the address for a taxi:

Tone note: no new greeting, practical, one instruction per sentence.

One knowledge base, every language

The way to answer Chinese guests well without speaking Chinese is not to keep a Chinese version of your facts. It is to keep one set of facts, in your own language, and let the translation happen at reply time. The check-in time, the pool hours and the lift key card rule are the same facts whatever language the guest writes in. If you hold two copies, one of them will be out of date within a month. A three-level structure helps: general facts (house rules), building facts (pool hours, key card), apartment facts (wifi, hot water switch). Change the pool hours once and every reply, in every language, is correct.

Questions hosts ask