The same questions, every stay
A guest lands late and writes from the taxi. Where do I park? What is the wifi password?
Your team answers these questions for every booking. Most of the answers never change.
A digital guidebook puts those answers on one page. The guest can open it at any hour, and your team writes the answers only once.
What a digital guidebook is
A digital guidebook is a web page for one stay or one unit. The guest opens it from a link on the phone.
It takes the place of the printed binder on the kitchen counter. Guests often do not notice a binder, and it is hard to change.
A web page is easy to change, and every guest sees the newest version.
The best ones need no app and no login. Few guests will install an app for a short stay.
What to put in it before arrival
Start with what the guest needs to reach the door.
Put the full address, a map pin and the parking steps first. Then add the check-in time and the checkout time.
Write the check-in steps in order, from the street to the door. If the entrance is hard to find, add a photo of it.
What to put in it for the stay
Next, answer the daily questions: the wifi name, the trash day, the pool hours and the air conditioning.
Write the house rules as short lines, such as quiet hours and the number of guests allowed.
Add the checkout steps too: where the keys go, what to do with towels, and when to leave.
Add what to do in an emergency. Give the local emergency number, and how to reach your team if a guest is locked out. Send the same steps in your booking messages too.
Many guests also want local tips. A short list of places to eat and the nearest grocery store is enough.
What to keep off it
A guest can forward a guidebook link to a friend, or post it by mistake. So keep private details off the page.
Do not put door codes or lockbox codes on it. Send them in the booking messages, close to the arrival day.
Keep your team's private phone numbers off it too. Give guests one clear way to reach your team.
If each stay has its own link, that link should stop working after checkout.
How guests get the link
A guidebook helps only when the guest opens it. Send the link twice: soon after booking, and again before arrival.
Send it where the guest already reads messages. For an Airbnb guest, that is the Airbnb inbox. For most other guests, it is email.
Put a printed QR card in the unit as well. When a guest scans it, a page should ask for the email or phone they booked with. Then it opens that guest's own guidebook. One card serves every guest, so scanning alone should never open anyone's guidebook.
A guidebook can also sell paid extras
Many guests want a few more hours. They ask to arrive early or leave late. Our articles explain how to set an early check-in fee and how to charge for late checkout.
A guidebook can show these extras as clear options, each at a price you set. It can also offer a mid-stay cleaning.
Offer more time only when your calendar allows it. Your cleaners need their time between two guests.
Make paying simple: one link to pay by card, and a clear note of what the guest bought.
Where a guidebook stops
A guidebook still asks the guest to look for the answer. Some guests will message you anyway, even when the answer is on the page.
An AI concierge can answer those messages from the same facts. Read what an AI concierge for vacation rental companies does, and what it should never do alone.
How TravelPal does this for you
TravelPal is the AI concierge for vacation rental companies and hotels. It also makes a private web page for each stay, which we call the guidebook.
The guest page shows the arrival steps your team writes, like parking, getting in and checking out.
You connect your booking system once. Then TravelPal makes the page for each confirmed booking. It connects to 33 property management systems (booking systems). The guest opens the page from one link, with no app and no login.
TravelPal sends the link in two messages: an intro soon after booking and a reminder before arrival. Airbnb guests get them in their Airbnb messages, and other guests get them by email.
TravelPal also gives you a QR code to print on a card in the unit. A guest who lost the link scans it and types the email or phone they booked with. If the stay is over or was canceled, the QR page finds no booking. So a past guest cannot open the page.
A canceled booking ends the link, and the link also ends soon after checkout.
The page also comes with an AI concierge chat. A guest can ask it about the unit and the area at any hour. A question it cannot answer goes to your team. The guest is told that your team is being alerted. Topics you name, such as a lockout, always go to your team.
TravelPal never guesses a door code. New companies start with door, gate and lockbox codes as a topic only their team answers. Then the chat does not give a code. It tells the guest that your team is being alerted, and your team sends the code. Read how TravelPal handles door codes.
Guests can buy a mid-stay cleaning or a damage waiver on the page. If you use Guesty, the page also sells early check-in and late checkout. You choose what each one costs.
Before it offers more time, TravelPal checks your calendar. It blocks the sale when one guest leaves and another arrives on the same day. TravelPal checks again before the sale goes through, and if it is not sure, it does not sell.
Guests pay by card into your company's own Stripe account. You need one to sell extras. TravelPal's fees, including any share of the extras, are on the pricing page.
See how the TravelPal guidebook works, or book a demo to see it with your own units.