Sixteen things that can run themselves

On the morning of the middle day of every stay, the guest gets a short WhatsApp or email asking if everything is right. Happy guests get a warm reply and go on the review list. Anything that sounds off reaches the office within seconds, while the guest is still in the property and the problem is still fixable.

Three days before arrival the guest receives everything a guest would otherwise have to ask for: directions, the door code, parking, wifi, bins, the good bakery. At the bottom sits a short offer list, and the first item is a Nauti Girl cruise on a date inside their stay.

Two hours after checkout the guest is asked how it went. Five stars go straight to the Google or Airbnb review box with one tap. Anything lower opens a private note instead, so the complaint arrives by email and not on the listing.

The moment a booking is confirmed, the cleaning and laundry slot is created and sent to the cleaner as a message they can read on a phone: which property, what time, how many beds, and the checklist. They send back photos when they finish, and those photos are attached to the booking. Same day turnovers are flagged the moment they appear.

Website enquiries, email, WhatsApp and the booking platforms land in one place. Each new enquiry arrives with a draft reply already prepared in the sender's language, holding the right availability and the right price. It gets read, adjusted if needed, and sent. Answers are approved rather than written from scratch.

A guest reports a problem through a link, adds a photo, and it becomes a job with a property, a date and an owner. It stays open until somebody closes it. No more issues living only inside a WhatsApp thread that scrolled away.

Where properties are managed on behalf of owners, the monthly statement builds itself: nights sold, gross, fees, costs, net, and the calendar for the month ahead. It goes out as a clean PDF on the same day every month, without anyone opening a spreadsheet.

Every way a trip gets booked ends up in the same Google Calendar: SimplyBook, the boat and tour marketplaces (GetMyBoat, Click&Boat, Viator, GetYourGuide and whichever others are in use), the website form, WhatsApp, a phone call, an agency booking by email. Each entry carries the service, the number of people, the guest's phone, allergies and the meeting gate, so the captain opens one calendar in the morning and knows the whole day. Shared with the crew, read only, always current.

Every evening the marine forecast for tomorrow's departures is checked against the limits the skipper sets for wind and swell. If a departure looks doubtful, a message goes out listing exactly which trips are affected, how many people are on each, and a ready written note to each guest offering a new date. The decision stays with the skipper. The paperwork does not.

Twenty four hours before departure the guest gets a short message with a map pin for gate ABCD, the meeting time ten minutes early, what to bring, and one question about allergies and dietary needs. Their answer lands on the calendar entry, so the crew reads it with the booking instead of discovering it on the pontoon.

The photos taken on board are collected into an album for that departure. A couple of hours after the boat is back, every guest gets the album link and, underneath it, the review ask. People who have just seen themselves swimming at Ponte da Piedade write far better reviews than people asked cold a week later.

In August the phone rings while the boat is at sea, and that caller books with somebody else. Any missed call gets an automatic WhatsApp within a minute: sorry, we were on the water, here are today's free slots and the booking link. The caller is answered even when nobody could pick up.

A departure still unsold forty eight hours out is a fixed cost with nobody paying it. When that happens, a limited offer goes to the people most likely to say yes: guests currently staying in a Lagos property, past guests in the area, and the waiting list. The offer expires on its own so it never undercuts a full price booking.

Two businesses in the same town with the same customers, currently working as strangers. Every guest staying in a property is a cruise waiting to be sold, and everybody stepping off the boat is a returning visitor who will need somewhere to stay next summer. This runs the introduction in both directions, automatically, with the offer timed to when it is actually useful.

One message every Monday with the week ahead: occupancy and arrivals for the properties, departures and seats sold for the boat, what came in last week against the same week last year, and anything that needs a decision. Short enough to read on a phone with a coffee.

The Nauti Girl site already speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish. The messages should too, and French and German besides, since that is who arrives in Lagos. Language is picked from how the guest first made contact, and everything after that follows it without anyone thinking about it.