Boost Guest Experience with Digital Guidebooks and Local Recommendations

The vacation rental industry continues to reinvent itself year after year. What used to be the gold standardーa clean space and a comfortable bedーdoesn’t cut it anymore. Guests expect more.

If hosts want to keep earning 5-star reviews and charging more per night, they have to step up their game. An easy and cheap way to do this is to boost a guest’s experience with a digital guidebook and local recommendations.

Did you say “digital” guidebook?

Any Airbnb host that’s been in the industry for a few years has heard of host-created guidebooks. You know, those MS Word documents you type up with the house rules and a few local spots guests can try during their stay. Grizzled vacation rental owners are probably rolling their eyes because they know guidebooks come with a few frustrations:

• Keeping them presentable is difficult: Guests will use the guidebook if you offer one. Great, right? Sort of. That means they’ll get them dirty, wrinkled, wet or coffee stained. Nothing axes your next guest’s perception of cleanliness faster than a dirty guidebook! You can laminate them, but then you get into another challenge.
• Updating them is a hassle: A new trendy microbrewery opened up nearby that’s all the rage? Including it in your guidebook means you’ll have to go back to your original document, edit it, print it, and update the guidebook. Who has time for that?

Digital guidebooks fix those two issues, and then some!

A digital guidebook takes advantage of the fact that nearly every vacation rental guest travels with a smartphone. With one click of a link, the entire guidebook is available on the guest’s phone. There’s no need for a fancy app or separate instructions. That fixes the presentability challenge. 

Now the best part. Digital guidebooks contain everything guests need to know about the rental itself. This includes rules, directions, check-in procedure, and how to use the features of the property. You’ll also have to recommend what there is to do nearby. Creating it takes under 30 minutes, and any future updates don’t require the host to print and update a dusty old three-ring binder. That fixes the frustrations of updating.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what digital guidebooks have to offer.

The other advantages of digital guidebooks

Companies like Hostfully have taken the concept of digital guidebooks one step further. Digital guidebooks are able to boost the guest experience by: 

1. Providing guests a branded experience: Our digital guidebook creation platform gives hosts the chance to brand their property. If your property is unique, why stick with the cookie-cutter Airbnb guidebook feature? By being able to brand your guidebook, guests will feel like they’re staying in something more than a vacation rental property. It brings the experience closer to a high-end boutique hotel.
   
2. Offering local recommendations: One of the new travel industry trends is that guests want to do more than visit the main tourist attractions. When they get to a neighborhood, they want to experience it as a local does. It’s called ‘Experiential Travel,’ a fancy term to say that guests want to know where you like to eat, drink, shop and party. Hostfully’s digital guidebook creation platform makes it easy to do this. If you can google a local spot, you can add it in your guidebook in one click!
   
3. Producing a polished and professional-looking end product: Not every host has the time to learn Photoshop and graphic design. When you build a digital guidebook with Hostfully, their software packages it all in a beautiful presentation. This example took under 15 minutes to create.  

What you should include in your digital guidebook

Compared to a traditional travel guidebook, a digital guidebook is more focused on the vicinity of the property. After all, travelers already know the major sights to visit from Google searches, word of mouth of having bought a guidebook.  

Here’s an example. A Parisian host can recommend a nearby spot where guests can get a great view of the city as opposed to sending them to the Eiffel Tower.

It’s the same for places to eat. Instead of sending guests to that one famous restaurant everyone knows about, a digital guidebook should direct to a local niche eatery up the road. 

By offering local recommendations, guests get an insight into how a local (the host) lives and interacts with the area. This helps the guest experience the city just like a local would, which satisfies that ‘experiential travel’ need.

Aside from local recommendations, digital guidebooks should also include entries that help make a guest’s stay in the property and neighborhood comfortable and effortless. These include: 

• House rules
• Check-in and check-out procedures
• Directions to the property (by car, from the airport, bus station, etc.)
• Clear instructions on how to get into the rental (if using self check-in)
• Nearest grocery store, pharmacy, and medical centers
• The wifi password
• List of pantry items you offer
• If you operate a family-friendly property, leave recommendations on where to get a car seat or stroller.

Data to help you build your guidebook

Want to create a digital guidebook but don’t know where to start? Why not look at what other hosts are doing?  

Hostfully gathered data from 15,000 digital guidebooks used by over 500 000 guests. On average, hosts left 11.8 recommendations per guidebook with one owner giving 135! When it comes to what hosts are recommending, the graph below shows that places to eat suggestions are twice as common than other types (more on that later): 

Places to eat. Why so popular?

It all comes down to catering for who is staying in the vacation rental: travelers. Eating is unavoidable, and even though vacation rentals typically offer kitchenettes, guests usually don’t eat every meal there. They need to eat out once in a while. On top of that, guests have different food tastes and budgets. Not to mention that some guests want something close, while others may be willing to walk or cab somewhere a bit further. This is why hosts recommend places to eat so often.

Insider tip: use custom categories to provide that truly local experience

In response to host feedback, Hostfully gave the option to create custom categories. This helped hosts recommend spots that aren’t in Google Places. The results were impressive: within a year, hosts created more than 300 custom categories. 

Hostfully’s data (see graph below) shows that hosts are using custom categories to bring our their vacation rentals’ unique location. For example, owners in coastal areas outside tourist hotspots creating “Beaches” as a custom category. Other hosts broke down “Places to Eat” into sub-categories like “Breweries,” “Dinner Restaurants,” and “Breakfast Cafes.” 

Wrapping things up

Digital guidebooks are an increasingly popular feature in today’s vacation rental industry. The reason is simple: they’re an easy and cheap way to give guests that local experience they crave. So why not try it yourself? All it takes is 30 minutes of googling, dragging and dropping. Companies like Hostfully even offer a free version for you to try.