How to write arrival instructions guests actually read
Arrival is the most stressful moment of a stay and the one you control least. The guest is tired, maybe lost, probably holding a phone with 12% battery and a suitcase in the other hand. Whatever you wrote three weeks ago in a confirmation email is now buried under boarding passes and taxi receipts. Good arrival instructions are written for that moment — not for the moment of booking.
Write for the pavement, not the desk
Arrival instructions are read standing on a street corner, not sitting at a desk. Assume one free hand, poor light and no patience. Every step should answer exactly one question: where do I go now?
Resist the urge to introduce the neighbourhood, the history of the building or the house rules. All of that belongs in the guidebook, after the door is open and the bags are down. Mixing it into arrival instructions is the fastest way to make guests skim past the one line that mattered.
One step, one action, one photo
Break the journey into steps the guest can complete without re-reading: find the building, open the gate, take the lift, find the door. Each step gets a short title, one or two sentences and — critically — a photo taken at the guest’s eye level, at the time of day most guests arrive.
A photo of the gate at night with the keypad clearly visible does more than any paragraph. If most arrivals are after dark, take the photo after dark.
- Title the step with an action (‘Open the blue gate’), not a place (‘Gate’).
- Shoot the photo from where the guest will actually be standing.
- Give distances in walking minutes, not metres.
- If a step needs a code, say when the code will appear — and keep that promise.
Release codes when they matter
A door code sent three weeks ahead is a code screenshotted, forwarded and forgotten. Release access details on the day of arrival, or a few hours before, and keep them inside the same steps the guest is already following. Guests get the code when they are at the door; you keep control if the booking changes or is cancelled.
Where possible, ask for a light verification — a last name or a short PIN — before the code appears. It costs the guest five seconds and stops a forwarded link from becoming a security problem.
Say what to do when it goes wrong
Instructions fail: the lift is out of service, the lock box jams, the taxi dropped them at the wrong building. Put a short ‘If something isn’t working’ line at the end of each critical step, with a single button to ask for help. The alternative is a frustrated phone call to a number they first have to hunt for in an email.
Make sure that help request lands somewhere a human will see it quickly at arrival hours. A beautifully written instruction with no fallback is still a locked door.
Set expectations a few days before
Send the link three to seven days ahead, when guests are planning their journey rather than living it. At that stage they want three things: how long the trip from the airport takes, whether there is parking, and what time they can get in. Answer those on the first screen and leave the step-by-step for arrival day.
This also gives you a quiet moment to catch problems early — a guest arriving at 2 AM, a group larger than booked — while there is still time to arrange a handover or a late key.
Test it like a stranger
Give the link to someone who has never visited and watch them arrive without helping. Note every pause and every ‘wait, which one?’. Where they hesitate, add a photo or split the step in two.
Repeat the test after any change to the building, the lock, the parking or the lighting. The instructions you wrote in spring are not the instructions you need in winter.