The Airbnb Arrival Guide has been introduced with a view to help hosts communicate check-in details, house rules and local recommendations. As an Airbnb host, you know that providing a seamless and delightful guest experience is crucial for great reviews and repeat visits. But you also know how the arrival process sets the tone of the entire stay, and that an unclear or confusing welcome leaves guests stressed, unsure and brimming with questions.
Keep reading to understand the key differentiators between the Airbnb Arrival guide and a Touch Stay digital guidebook - and what it takes to leave guests feeling truly cared for.
- What is the Airbnb Arrival Guide?
- What are the limitations of Airbnb's Arrival Guide?
- The versatility of Touch Stay digital guidebooks
- The Touch Stay Airbnb Arrival Guide
- An Airbnb Arrival Guide bursting with features
- An Airbnb Arrival Guide that drives revenue
- The Airbnb Arrival Guide alternative
What is the Airbnb Arrival Guide?
The Airbnb Arrival Guide is a built-in feature on the Airbnb app for hosts to populate to provide guests basic information about their stay. Its sections include:
- Check-in
- Directions
- Check-in method
- Wi-Fi details
- House manual
- House rules
- Check-out instructions
- Guidebooks
- Interaction preferences
These sections definitely go some way to answering questions a guest might have about their stay. However, while clearly a step in the right direction for managing guest expectations, Airbnb’s built-in Arrival Guide is somewhat limited in its ability to ensure complete guest confidence, likely leading to additional guest questions coming your way.
What are the limitations of Airbnb’s Arrival Guide?
Many of us here at Touch Stay are Airbnb hosts ourselves, so we were intrigued to play with the Airbnb Arrival Guide and see if it would work sufficiently for our guests. First, let’s check out some examples of what Airbnb’s built-in Arrival Guide looks like:
While it features basic information like Check-in, Directions, Check-in method, Wi-Fi details, House manual, House rules, Check-out instructions, Guidebooks, and Interaction preferences, what if guests have questions about their stay that aren’t covered in Airbnb’s Arrival Guide? Well, that’s where things get a bit more complicated...
Each section of Airbnb’s Arrival Guide is limited by a strict 500-character count and minimal formatting flexibility, lacking the freedom to craft a custom welcome experience that matches your listing's amenities and neighbourhood insights. As a host, you’re limited in customising the content to match your unique property listing and your guests’ needs:
As well as the restriction on key info, Airbnb’s Arrival Guide doesn’t let you include the photos, videos, QR codes or deeper explanations required for answering common guest questions or building pre-stay excitement. These visual elements are useful for reinforcing written information (or even essential for neurodiverse guests).
Not only does Airbnb not allow images or videos to be added to its Arrival Guide, but its sections cannot be broken down into subcategories for expanding on key info. As hosts, we know that guests want as much information about their stay as possible - because informed guests are happy guests.
The versatility of Touch Stay digital guidebooks
With informed, happy guests in mind, we designed our digital guidebook to allow you to add as much information as you like to every Category, Subcategory and Topic in your guidebook. Allowing guests access to a wealth of information about their stay reduces repetitive questions, saving valuable time for all parties.
An Arrival Guide is integral to the Touch Stay digital guidebook template, and its format and content is entirely customisable by you. Your Touch Stay Arrival Guide can include friendly and detailed check-in/check-out instructions, unlimited information about any aspect of your property (from an instructional video on how to work the key lock, to photos of where to park your car).
Within or in addition to the Arrival Guide, you can also incorporate a virtual tour of the property in your Touch Stay guidebook to build pre-stay excitement, as well as tailored, personal recommendations for things to do, see and eat in your local area.
Because Touch Stay digital guidebooks are so easy to update and maintain, they offer an ideal solution for property managers and hosts with listings advertised across different websites or platforms. Whether you’ve got one property or 500, Touch Stay allows you to update information in real-time to one, some, or all of your guidebooks - in just a few clicks!
Flexible and customisable: the Touch Stay Airbnb Arrival Guide
In contrast to the restrictive nature of the Airbnb Arrival Guide, Touch Stay digital guidebooks are loved worldwide by thousands of hosts and millions of guests alike for their flexibility to include rich, engaging content tailored specifically to their listings:
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Fully-customisable formatting
Touch Stay digital guidebooks offer total creative freedom when structuring your content. Easily include text, photos, videos, maps and more with our intuitive editing tools. Highlight must-see attractions nearby or explain common FAQs through visual demonstrations. The possibilities are endless!
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Make it your own
Unlike a generic Airbnb Arrival Guide, Touch Stay allows you to apply your logo, brand colours, font, images and videos, so guests get to know you and your business, not just another Airbnb rental.
- Easy navigation
Touch Stay offers intuitive organisation features to present information in clear categories with digestible formatting, making it quick and easy for guests to find answers. These simple considerations play out as powerful options to help you logically structure information in your guidebook to improve readability for guests, encouraging them to stick around and read deeply:
- Expand/collapse sections: helps travellers see the sum of information provided and then dive into details most important for them
- Internal Links: guests can navigate your digital guidebook fluidly from one section to another
- Multi-format content: guide visitors through multi-part instructions using words, photos, graphics or videos
And we’re only just scratching the surface…
An Airbnb Arrival Guide bursting with features
Touch Stay digital guidebooks feature a myriad of additional, easy-to-use, built-in features, widgets and free Custom Elements (that your guests will love) to drive bookings, build loyalty and nurture repeat business:
First Impressions
lets you connect with guests about the make-or-break first hours of their stay. By offering a friendly welcome, and requesting honest feedback from newly-arrived guests you can get ahead of any issues to ensure that 5-star rating at check-out!
Ratings
Allow guests to provide feedback about any aspect of their stay. Want to know how easy a guest found your hot tub to use, for example? Use Ratings to improve the process for the next session.
Email Capture
While Airbnb hides guest emails from hosts, Touch Stay encourages you to build long-lasting relationships with them. Our Email Capture Topic lets you easily collect guest emails in a friendly, non-intrusive way to use in direct marketing activities. Extend your relationship with guests long after they check-out to boost bookings and stay ahead of the competition.
Weather Widget
Helps guests stay ahead of the weather to plan their packing and activities. Our Weather Widget incorporates real-time localised updates to provide quick, at-a-glance information for weather conditions before and during their stay. It can also be customised with seasonal info - e.g. in spring, campsite owners can advise to bring wet weather gear, or event managers can recommend winter visitors bring warm clothes or snow boots.
Tide Times Widget
Perfect for guests staying near a coast or river - whether it’s a game of beach cricket or a day of kayaking, this widget helps guests plan outings and activities using precise tide information in real-time for your area.
Translations
The language barrier can be a significant challenge when delivering an exceptional guest experience, which is why Touch Stay allows you to tailor your content for guests - no matter where they’re from. Automatically translate your guidebook into 17 different languages (with more being added all the time).
Sign up today to start customising your own Touch Stay Airbnb Arrival Guide.
An Airbnb Arrival Guide that drives revenue
With our new free Custom Elements feature, you can enrich your guidebook and turn it into a multifunctional tool to showcase your property, upsell to guests and so much more!
From embedding playlists for your guests’ journey, building excitement with a 3D property tour, to upselling grocery orders or excursions with simple forms, our free Custom Elements feature helps you easily create an immersive digital guest experience and drive more revenue for your business.
Matterport 3D virtual tours
For a large property with multiple guests arriving, a Matterport 3D tour allows the whole party to see the rooms and choose ahead of time, allowing for a stress free arrival - no rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets which room! And provide peace of mind to guests with accessibility needs, as they’ll know exactly how they’ll navigate your property with a virtual 3D tour.
Lakeside Manor helps their guests plan their visit and get excited about the gorgeous home they will be staying in with a professional, polished 3D tour of their property.
Spotify playlists
Bring the unique personality of your property to your Touch Stay guidebook by easily embedding a Spotify playlist anywhere in your guidebook. Make it fun for guests to explore your property, build excitement and plan ahead, long before they arrive.
Touch Stay’s Emma has added her own Spotify playlist to her Barcelona city guide, making it fun for her friends to build excitement before they arrive. Everyone loves a good boogie moment (especially to Taylor Swift!):
Jotform for upsells and self check-in
With 67% of guests wanting self-check-in (Guest Communication Study, 2023), Jotform can make it happen without over-complicating the process for you or your team.
Jotform forms can be fully customised and embedded anywhere in your guidebook to ensure a smooth self check-in or offer guests local products, pre-arrival groceries, or any additional services, like beauty treatments, cookery classes, horse-riding lessons, or photoshoots. Enrich the experience for guests without them needing to leave your property.
Check out how Branson Family Retreats spoils guests with a photo-worthy charcuterie board delivered during their stay, offers handy items like dry bags and bedding, gift cards and other souvenirs directly from their guidebook.
No app downloads required
What’s more, there’s no need for guests to download the Touch Stay app from an app store. The link opens in a browser and is simply bookmarked or saved to a guest’s phone where it looks and behaves like an app, but also works offline - ideal if mobile reception is patchy near a remote property.
This mobile and offline availability delights guests in addition to your insider tips readily available throughout their stay. No more burdensome email hunting or flicking through dog-eared printouts!
You can share a link to your Touch Stay guidebook via Airbnb once a guest has booked - and even add the Touch Stay guidebook URL into the Airbnb Arrival Guide itself:
The Airbnb Arrival Guide alternative
Creating an impeccable arrival experience for your guests is essential, and while Airbnb’s Arrival Guide is a step in the right direction to provide guests with key information, it falls short in terms of customisation and functionality.
Touch Stay addresses the limitations of Airbnb’s offering by providing hosts with the flexibility to create fully-customisable, visually appealing digital guidebooks that build guest confidence and excitement while clearly communicating important details.
From detailed check-in instructions to personalised property information and local recommendations, Touch Stay enhances the guest experience, fostering customer satisfaction and reducing unnecessary queries. The countless, easy-to-use built-in features position Touch Stay as the go-to solution for hosts seeking to elevate their hospitality game and create 5-star experiences.
Sign up today for a free 14-day trial and revolutionise the way you welcome and engage your guests!