What to put in a digital guidebook (and what to leave out)
The welcome binder in the kitchen drawer is usually three years out of date and written for the host, not the guest. Moving it online fixes the ‘out of date’ problem only if you also decide what belongs in it. Guests do not read guidebooks; they search them, in the thirty seconds before they give up and message you. Fewer, better sections win.
Start with the questions you actually get
Look at your last fifty guest messages. The list will be short and predictable: Wi-Fi, parking, the air conditioning, hot water, the oven, bins, checkout time, where to eat nearby. That list is your table of contents, in order of frequency. Everything else is optional.
The essentials for every property
These sections earn their place in every guidebook, in roughly this order.
- Wi-Fi: network name, a copyable password and what to do if it drops.
- Access: gate, lift, intercom, and what the building expects of guests.
- Kitchen and appliances: the oven everyone misuses, the dishwasher tablets, the coffee machine.
- Heating and air conditioning: how to turn it on, what the remote buttons mean, what not to touch.
- Garbage and recycling: which bin, which day, where the bins live.
- House rules: quiet hours, smoking, visitors, pool hours — short and specific.
- Emergency: local numbers, nearest pharmacy and hospital, where the water shut-off and fuse box are.
- Checkout: time, keys, the three things you need guests to do.
The nice-to-haves
TV and streaming logins, laundry instructions, pool and gym hours, baby equipment, how to get to the airport and which taxi apps actually work in your city. Add them when guests ask, not before — a guidebook that anticipates every possible question is one nobody finishes reading. A good rule: if two guests in a season asked, it goes in; if one guest asked, answer them directly.
Order it by frequency, name it like guests do
Put the most-asked sections first; Wi-Fi is almost always number one. Name sections with the words guests type, not the words your maintenance contractor uses: ‘Hot water’ rather than ‘Boiler’, ‘TV’ rather than ‘Entertainment system’. If a section needs a second name to be found, you probably have two sections.
Keep the guidebook separate from check-in. Arrival instructions are a sequence to follow once; the guidebook is a reference to dip into for a week. Mixing them makes both worse.
What to leave out
Long welcome letters, the history of the area and marketing for your other properties — guests will skip them and miss the useful part. Anything that changes weekly belongs in a feed post, not a guidebook page. And anything secret — door codes, alarm codes, gate codes — belongs behind release rules tied to the stay, never on a page that can be screenshotted and shared.
Write it like a label, not a letter
Section titles as nouns (‘Wi-Fi’, ‘Parking’). Two to five sentences per section. Numbered steps for anything procedural. One photo where words fail: the thermostat, the fuse box, the recycling bins. Keep passwords copyable so nobody types a 16-character string from a photo.
Write in the language guests use, not the language maintenance uses. ‘Air conditioning’ beats ‘HVAC’ every time.
Keep it alive
Review the guidebook every quarter and after every maintenance visit or appliance change. Make it the single source of truth your team answers from, so staff stop answering from memory and guests stop getting three different versions of the parking rules.
Give it one owner. Shared ownership of a guidebook means every out-of-date line is somebody else’s job.