Your Complete Guide to a Hotel Information Book Guests Will Actually Read

A well-crafted hotel information book is more than just a list of rules. Think of it as your 24/7 on-site concierge—the silent partner that answers questions, solves problems, and makes guests feel genuinely cared for. After more than a decade of being Superhosts ourselves, we can tell you it's probably the single most powerful tool you have for earning those consistent 5-star reviews.

Why a Great Guest Guide Matters

Let's be real—as hosts, we live and die by the details. We’ve learned that a thoughtful guest guide is the absolute foundation of a seamless stay. It needs to move beyond the dusty binder cliché and become a true extension of your hospitality, working for you even when you’re not there.

Today's travelers don't just want a place to sleep; they want an experience. Your information book is often the first real taste they get of your hospitality. It sets the tone, manages expectations, and shows you've anticipated their needs before they even have to ask.

The True Impact on Your Hosting Business

A well-designed guide has a direct impact on both your bottom line and your peace of mind. In our own properties, implementing a clear, welcoming book cut down on those repetitive late-night texts about the Wi-Fi password by at least 80%. It also empowered guests to solve minor issues themselves, like figuring out the smart TV or the coffee maker.

Here’s a quick comparison of common hosting challenges with and without a well-crafted guest guide. This is what worked for us.

The Impact of a Great Hotel Information Book

As you can see, the benefits go far beyond just answering questions. A well-crafted hotel information book not only improves the guest experience but also plays an integral part in building a robust reputation management strategy for hotels. It’s a proactive tool that shapes their entire stay.

Standing Out in a Competitive Market

The hospitality industry is packed. With an estimated 17.5 million guestrooms available across approximately 187,000 hotels worldwide, every single detail counts when it comes to making your property memorable. The little touches, like a beautifully organized information book, are what separate a good stay from a great one.

In our experience, the hosts who thrive are the ones who obsess over the guest journey. Your information book is the roadmap for that journey, guiding visitors from a warm welcome to a flawless checkout. It’s not just information; it’s hospitality in written form.

Ultimately, this guide is your silent partner. It ensures consistency, saves you valuable time, and consistently delights your guests, making it one of the most effective investments you can make in your hosting business.

What to Include in Your Welcome Book

So, what should you actually put inside a guide that guests will open, use, and even appreciate? After hosting hundreds of people across different properties, we've learned that a great hotel information book strikes a perfect balance. It's part practical essentials, part personal touches that make a stay memorable.

Think of it as anticipating your guests' needs and answering their questions before they even have to ask. You want to start with a warm greeting, give them the critical info they need right away, and then share the insider tips that turn their trip from just "good" to truly unforgettable.

The Non-Negotiable Essentials

These are the absolute must-haves. Guests are often tired from their journey, and making this information effortless to find is your first big win. We’ve learned to put these right at the front to prevent confusion and those late-night texts.

• A Personal Welcome Note: This is where you set the tone. A short, sincere message welcoming them to your space makes a huge difference. It reminds them there’s a real person behind the listing who genuinely cares about their experience.

• Wi-Fi Instructions: Let's be honest, this is often the very first thing guests look for. Display the network name and password clearly. We even put ours on a small, separate card right by the entrance for instant access.

• Emergency Contact Information: List your phone number, a backup contact, and local emergency services (police, fire, hospital). Don't forget to include the full property address here—it’s surprisingly easy for guests to forget in a stressful moment.

• Check-in and Check-out Procedures: Outline the process with simple, step-by-step instructions. Include times, key return details, and any tasks you ask guests to handle before leaving (like taking out the trash or starting the dishwasher).

Property-Specific Instructions

Every property has its quirks. Your job is to demystify them so guests can relax and enjoy all the amenities without feeling hesitant. Clear instructions not only prevent accidental damage but also make your guests feel more confident and at home.

For instance, we once had a high-tech coffee machine we loved, but it led to a constant stream of questions. A simple, one-page guide with photos solved the problem instantly.

Here's what we recommend including:

1. Appliance Guides: For TVs, remote controls, thermostats, kitchen gadgets, and anything else that isn't completely obvious.

2. Parking Details: Where to park, any assigned spot numbers, and rules about street parking.

3. Trash and Recycling: Explain where the bins are and the schedule for pickup days.

Based on our experience, the more you demystify the small things, the more guests feel in control and at ease. A guest who knows how to work the thermostat is a happy guest.

Elevating the Guest Experience

This is where your hotel information book evolves from a simple manual into a curated local guide. It's your chance to share your love for your area and help guests experience it like a local, not just another tourist. This personal touch is what often gets mentioned in 5-star reviews.

Crafting this section takes time, but it’s a massive value-add. This is how you can truly compete. The global hotel industry on dreambigtravelfarblog.com saw a market size of $4.7 trillion in 2023. Standing out with personalized hospitality is everything.

• Curated Local Recommendations: Don't just list the top tourist traps. Share your favorite spots—the cozy coffee shop with the best latte, the family-run restaurant with amazing pasta, or the scenic hiking trail only locals seem to know about.

• Transportation Tips: Explain the best ways to get around. Include info on public transit, reliable taxi services, or local bike rental shops.

• House Rules (Framed Positively): Instead of a list of "Don'ts," frame your rules with a focus on mutual respect. For example, instead of "No loud parties," try "Please be mindful of our quiet hours after 10 PM to ensure a peaceful stay for everyone in the building."

For hosts looking for a head start, using a pre-structured guide can be a lifesaver. You can check out our guide on creating a vacation rental welcome book template to see how these sections come together in a clean, professional format.

Designing Your Guide for Maximum Readability

Let’s be honest. You can write the most detailed hotel information book in the world, but if it looks like a dense textbook, your guests will never open it. After years of tweaking our own guides, we’ve learned one crucial lesson: presentation is everything.

A guide that’s inviting and easy to scan feels less like a set of rules and more like a warm, personal welcome. It shows guests you've thought about their experience down to the smallest details. This is your chance to turn a simple document into a memorable part of your brand.

Structuring for Scannability

A tired guest doesn't want to hunt through long paragraphs to find the Wi-Fi password. They want info, and they want it now. We've found that a few simple formatting tricks make a huge difference in how guests actually use our welcome books.

Think of it like designing a great website. You use clear headings, short sentences, and visual cues to guide the eye. Your welcome book should be no different.

To make sure guests can absorb everything effortlessly, follow these essential tips for clear writing when putting your guide together. Simple, direct language is just as important as the layout.

Here are the core elements we build into every single guide:

• A Clear Table of Contents: This is non-negotiable. Put it right at the front so guests can immediately find what they need, whether it's "Wi-Fi & TV" or "Our Favorite Coffee Shops."

• Descriptive Headings: Use simple, direct headings like "Getting Around Town" or "How to Use the Kitchen Appliances" instead of vague titles.

• Strategic Use of White Space: Don't cram the page. Generous margins and spacing make the content feel less intimidating and way easier to read.

• Short Paragraphs and Bullet Points: Break up those text walls. We stick to a maximum of three sentences per paragraph and use bullet points for instructions or recommendations.

Adding Visual Appeal

Visuals do more than just make your guide look pretty—they boost understanding and keep guests engaged. A photo can explain how to use the espresso machine far better than a paragraph of text ever could.

In our experience, adding simple icons and high-quality photos to our guides dramatically increased the chances that guests would actually read them. It transforms the book from a chore into an enjoyable part of their discovery process.

Consider adding a few of these visual elements:

1. High-Quality Photos: Include pictures of your property, local landmarks, or even the amazing tacos from your favorite recommended spot.

2. Simple Icons: Use icons to draw the eye to important sections like Wi-Fi, emergency contacts, or house rules. It creates a handy visual shortcut for guests.

3. Consistent Branding: Stick to the same fonts and color scheme you use in your online listing. This reinforces your brand and creates a polished, cohesive feel.

Choosing the Right Format

The final piece of the design puzzle is the format itself. We’ve tried everything from a simple binder to fully digital guides, and each has its own pros and cons.

A beautiful binder that matches your decor can feel personal and high-end, but it can be a pain (and expensive) to update every time something changes. A sleek digital guide, on the other hand, is instantly updatable, eco-friendly, and accessible to guests even before they arrive. It's a hot topic with a lot of debate, and you can dive into our full breakdown of paper vs digital guest guides to see which might be the best fit for your hosting style.

Why Your Next Information Book Should Be Digital

A physical binder in your rental has a certain old-school charm, but after more than a decade of hosting, we can tell you with 100% certainty: a digital guide is a total game-changer. Making the switch was one of the single best upgrades we ever made to our properties. It completely transformed our guest communication, saved us countless hours, and genuinely improved our reviews.

Think about it. A digital hotel information book lands in your guest's inbox the moment they confirm their booking. They can start getting excited and planning their trip with your personal recommendations long before they even think about packing. It immediately positions you as a professional, organized, and thoughtful host.

Instantly Updatable and Always Accurate

The biggest headache with a printed binder is how fast it goes stale. A favorite local restaurant closes down, you get a new Wi-Fi router, or you install a new smart TV. With a physical guide, every little change means reprinting pages, which is wasteful, expensive, and a genuine hassle.

A digital guide, on the other hand, can be updated in seconds from literally anywhere. When the city changes its recycling schedule or a cool new coffee shop opens down the street, you just log in and make the edit. This ensures your guests always have the most current info, preventing those small frustrations that can lead to a less-than-perfect stay.

Interactive Features That Delight Guests

This is where digital guides really pull away from the pack. You're no longer stuck with static text and a few photos. Instead, you can create a rich, interactive experience that makes your guests' stay smoother and way more fun.

The possibilities are pretty cool:

• Clickable Maps: Instead of just listing your favorite spots, you can embed a live map with pins. Guests can tap a pin for that amazing taco place you recommended and get instant walking directions right on their phone.

• Direct Booking Links: Know a fantastic local tour company? Drop in a direct link so guests can book an excursion right from your guide. This adds real value and makes you their go-to local expert.

• Video Tutorials: Is the smart TV remote a little tricky to figure out? Forget writing a complicated paragraph. Just embed a quick, 30-second video showing guests exactly how it works. We did this for our espresso machine, and the questions stopped overnight.

In our experience, guests don’t just use these features—they absolutely love them. We constantly get feedback about how helpful the clickable map was for exploring the neighborhood or how the video tutorial for the thermostat saved them a call. It’s all about making their experience completely seamless.

This kind of data is perfect for a digital map, showing guests just how close they are to everything.

With an interactive map, you can turn these distances into precise, tap-and-go directions for your guests.

Let's break down the real-world differences between a traditional printed book and a modern digital version.

Physical Guidebook vs Digital Guidebook

The choice becomes pretty clear when you see it all laid out. A digital guide just offers a superior experience for both you and your guests.

Eco-Friendly and Ultra-Convenient

In a world where travelers are more conscious of their environmental footprint, going paperless is a small change that sends a big message. A digital guide gets rid of the need for paper, ink, and plastic binders, aligning your property with modern, sustainable values.

Plus, it's just so much more convenient for guests. Their guide lives on their phone—the one thing they carry everywhere. They can access your restaurant list while they're out exploring or double-check the checkout time from the airport. No more "I forgot the binder at the rental"; the info is always right there in their pocket. For a deeper dive, check out our complete guide to the modern digital guest book for Airbnb.

Professionalism and Brand Building

Finally, a beautifully designed digital guide just looks professional. It's sleek, modern, and shows you're a serious host who invests in the right tools. With a platform like SmoothStay, you can customize your digital guide with your own logo and colors to create a cohesive and memorable brand experience.

It sends a clear signal that you’re committed to providing a top-tier stay. This level of professionalism doesn't just impress guests—it helps justify your pricing and encourages those all-important repeat bookings. It's a small investment that pays off big time in guest satisfaction and five-star reviews.

Creating Your Digital Guidebook with SmoothStay

Ready to build a digital hotel information book that actually wows your guests? As hosts ourselves, we designed SmoothStay to be completely intuitive—no tech wizardry required. The whole point is to get you from a blank slate to a beautiful, professional guide in less time than it takes to watch a movie.

Let’s walk through the simple steps to create a guide you’ll be genuinely proud to share. This process is all about taking the great information you already have in your head and turning it into an elegant, guest-first experience.

Getting Started with Your Template

That first step is often the hardest, which is exactly why we’ve made it easy. Instead of staring at a blank page and wondering where to begin, you can choose from a library of professionally designed templates. We built these based on our own decade of hosting experience, so they cover all the essential sections a guest really needs.

Think of a template as your blueprint. It gives you the structure—the welcome page, house rules section, local recommendations, and more—so all you have to do is fill in the details that make your property unique. It’s a huge time-saver and makes sure you don’t forget anything critical.

Customizing Your Guidebook to Match Your Brand

Once you’ve picked a template, it's time to make it your own. This is where you get to infuse your guidebook with your property's unique personality. A great digital tool should let you customize just about everything to create a seamless brand experience for your guests.

Here’s what you can typically do:

• Add Your Logo: Upload your logo so it appears right on the welcome page, instantly reinforcing your professional brand.

• Choose Your Colors: Select colors that match your property’s aesthetic or your business branding for a cohesive, polished look.

• Upload a Hero Image: A stunning photo of your property or a beautiful local landmark makes a fantastic first impression.

This level of customization is crucial in a competitive market. According to recent hospitality industry statistics at HotelTechReport.com, the global hotel development pipeline remained strong in Q1 2024 with 6,192 projects. Standing out with a polished, branded guide helps you compete with properties of all sizes.

Populating Your Guide with Rich Content

Now for the fun part: adding your content. A digital platform lets you go way beyond simple text. You can embed rich media that makes your information more engaging and genuinely helpful for your guests.

The more visual and interactive you make your guide, the more guests will actually use it. Videos for tricky appliances and clickable maps for restaurant recommendations are small touches that leave a big impression.

Here’s how you can bring your guide to life:

1. Welcome Page: Craft a warm, personal message. You can even embed a short welcome video to greet your guests personally when they arrive.

2. Property Instructions: For appliances like the smart TV or that fancy espresso machine, upload photos with clear, step-by-step instructions. This simple action can drastically cut down on confused questions.

3. Local Recommendations: Don’t just list names of places. Add photos, short descriptions of why you love each spot, and embed a Google Map link so guests can get directions with a single tap. This is one of the key ways digital guidebooks boost guest satisfaction.

Sharing Your Guide with Guests

Once your beautiful guide is complete, sharing it is effortless. A key advantage of a tool like SmoothStay is that it’s entirely web-based. This means there are no apps for guests to download and no clunky logins to remember.

You simply get a unique, shareable link. You can include this link in your booking confirmation emails, your pre-arrival messages, or even connect it to a QR code that you place inside your property. Guests just click the link and instantly have your entire hotel information book on their phone, tablet, or laptop—accessible anytime, anywhere.

Common Questions About Guest Welcome Books

After more than a decade of hosting, we’ve heard just about every question you can imagine when it comes to creating the perfect hotel information book. It’s one of those things that seems simple at first, but the details really do matter.

We’ve gathered the most common questions we get from fellow hosts and are sharing our honest, experience-based answers. There’s no single “right” way to do this, but these are the approaches that have consistently worked for us across different properties and locations.

How Much Detail Is Too Much Detail?

This is the number one question we hear. Hosts worry about overwhelming their guests with a massive binder, and it's a valid concern. The goal isn't to write a novel; it's to give your guests just enough information to feel confident and independent.

Our rule of thumb? Keep it lean, but make it count.

• For appliances: Stick to a simple, one-page guide with photos for anything with a learning curve, like a smart TV or an espresso machine. No one needs the full 50-page manufacturer's manual.

• For local tips: Don't just dump a list of every restaurant in town. Curate a small, thoughtful list of your absolute favorites. We break ours into categories like "Best Coffee," "Cozy Dinner Spot," and "Family-Friendly Lunch" to make it easy.

What If My Guests Don’t Read It?

Let's be honest: some guests just won't. It can be frustrating to pour your heart into a beautiful guide only to have it ignored. But you can seriously improve your odds by making it scannable, visually appealing, and, most importantly, digital.

Sending a digital guide before they arrive gets the information in front of them while they're still in that excited planning phase. Better yet, a digital guide lives on their phone, so they can pull up your restaurant picks while they’re out exploring. That kind of accessibility is what gets people to actually use it.

We’ve found that even if a guest only skims the guide, having it available prevents them from feeling lost or unsupported. It’s a powerful tool for proactively building trust and demonstrating your commitment to their experience.

How Should I Handle House Rules?

The way you frame your rules changes everything. A long list of "Don'ts" can feel aggressive and immediately puts guests on the defensive. It sets the wrong tone from the start.

Instead, we frame our rules in a positive light, focusing on mutual respect and ensuring a great stay for everyone.

For instance, instead of a harsh "NO PARTIES," we say, "To ensure a peaceful stay for you and our neighbors, we observe quiet hours from 10 PM to 8 AM." It's a small shift, but it makes a world of difference. This approach is a core part of learning how to improve guest satisfaction because it positions you as a partner in their trip, not just a property owner with a list of demands.

Creating a memorable stay is all about the details, and a great information book is one of the most important details of all. We hope our experience helps you craft a guide that saves you time and delights your guests.

At SmoothStay, we’re hosts just like you, dedicated to creating exceptional guest experiences. Our platform makes it simple to build a beautiful, professional digital guidebook that guests will love. We're constantly improving our guest-first features and believe in fair, scalable pricing for fellow hosts. Start your free trial today and see how easy it is to elevate your hospitality.