Making a guest guide
Making a guest guide: five ways compared.
What goes in it, what each way does well and where it falls short — for your B&B, your hotel or your tour.
What goes in a guest guide?
A guest guide answers the questions a guest would otherwise ask you: how to get in and when to leave, what the wifi password is, how the house works and what you ask of them, and who to turn to if something comes up. Then comes the area: where to eat, what to see and where you send guests yourself.
However you make it, three things decide whether a guest actually uses it: it is in a language they read, it works where the signal gives out, and the door code and the wifi are not somewhere anyone can see them.
Five ways to make one
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A printed folder
Good at: it is waiting in the room, needs no phone or signal, and can look beautiful. Falls short: it stays behind when your guest goes out, every change means a reprint, and more than one language makes it thick.
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A PDF or document
Good at: you make it with what you already have and email it before arrival. Falls short: on a phone it is all pinching and scrolling, there is usually no map to tap, and an old version lives on in every inbox you ever sent it to.
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The guidebook in a booking platform
Good at: guests who book through that platform already have the app, and the guide sits where they are looking anyway. Falls short: it is made for guests who book through that platform, and those who book direct or elsewhere are hard to reach with it; it looks like the platform rather than like you, and you write most of what is in it yourself.
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A website or link page
Good at: your own address, your own style and one link for everything. Falls short: anyone who has the address can open it, so the door code and the wifi do not belong on it; it usually will not load without a signal, and the map, the tips and the translations are all yours to make.
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A digital guide like VidiVeni
Good at: made for exactly this — on your guest’s phone, in their language, with a map, readable without a signal once opened, and what only guests should see behind a link of its own. Falls short: your guest needs a phone for it, it is a subscription, and you depend on a service you do not run yourself.
How to make one with VidiVeni
You start from your address. The part about the area comes from our checked catalogue of real places, each with a spot on the map, a description and a practical tip; you add your welcome, your favourites, your own places and your house details. What you write yourself, you write once: in your guides in other languages it appears translated automatically, with a line saying so.
One QR code in the room, or on the card for a tour, opens the guide, and only behind that code are the wifi, the door code and the check-in and check-out times. When something changes, you change it on the dashboard; the printed code keeps working.
What hosts ask
I already have a paper folder. Where do I start?
With what is already in it. Your welcome, your house rules and the places you send guests yourself come with you, whichever way you choose. Cut what is no longer true, and put first what guests ask you most often: that is what they look for first.
Paper or digital: which is better?
Paper is waiting in the room and needs no phone. Digital goes out of the door with your guest, changes without a reprint and can be in your guest’s language. You can also do both: a sheet with the QR code in the welcome folder, and the guide on your guest’s phone.
Do I have to write everything myself?
With a printed folder, a document or a website, you write everything yourself. With VidiVeni the part about the area comes from our checked catalogue; you write your welcome and your house details and pick your favourites. A place that is not in the catalogue, like that one bakery, you add yourself.
Where do the wifi and the door code go?
Not on a page anyone can open. With VidiVeni they are only behind the link of the QR code in the room; the ordinary share link and your public page never show them, and the printed card carries the wifi only if you tick it.
Do I make a new guest guide for every guest?
No. A guest guide is there for all your guests: with VidiVeni you make one for your place or your tour, in every language you offer, and every guest opens it with the same QR code. When a guest wants a plan for their own stay, one step turns that guide into a guide for their booking: arrival, departure and, if you like, their name, on a link of its own that stops shortly after they leave.
Getting started
Don’t start from a blank page.
Request a demo: we have the guest guide for your own address ready beforehand, and go through it with you on the call. Or open the examples first, exactly as guests get them.