Why this matters more than it used to
In October 2025, Airbnb shifted to a 15.5% all-host service fee. Vrbo charges similar. Booking.com takes its cut differently but the math lands in the same place:
The platforms are the most expensive way to get a booking.
Direct bookings cost less, build longer relationships, and produce a 51% longer booking window on average. But you can't market to guests you don't have on a list. And you can't put them on a list if you never collected their email in the first place.
Most hosts don't realize how much value walks out the door at checkout. Guest Registration captures it before the guidebook even opens.
Why It Matters
Guest registration with OTA-compliance built in.
SmoothStay helps you stay compliant — the guest registration widget recognizes when a guest is arriving from an OTA like Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com, and adapts automatically.
On OTA-restricted links, the marketing opt-in never appears, so your OTA accounts stay out of trouble. You can also choose to hide the registration form entirely on OTA links if you prefer. On reservation links, you control which OTAs the restrictions apply to — useful if your channel mix is different across properties. This is the same three-level OTA compliance system that runs across the whole platform; the registration widget plugs into it.
The result: you collect direct-booking data on the channels where it's allowed, and you stay invisible on the channels where it isn't.
How it Works
1
Add your privacy policy
You'll need your own privacy policy to activate the widget — it's a legal requirement for collecting guest data, not a SmoothStay rule. Don't have one? Free tools like Termly, iubenda, and PrivacyPolicies.com generate a hosted policy in minutes. Paste the URL into Settings → Brand → Privacy policy.
2
Choose how registration works per property
Open any property's Visibility & sharing settings, then pick Off, Optional, or Required. Different properties can have different rules — required for your direct-booking villa, optional for your Airbnb-only studio.
3
Watch your contact list build itself
Every registered guest flows automatically into Contacts, with their engagement data tracked alongside. Export to CSV when you're ready to email them through your own marketing tool.
Pricing
Guest Registration is included on every paid plan
How to Get the Most out of Your Guidebook's Guest Registration Widget
Fewer fields = more registrations. The data backs it up. If you only need email and country, hide the rest. You can always add fields later as your direct-booking program matures.
Use Optional mode first, Required mode only if needed. Forcing guests to register before they see their wifi password is a fast way to get a one-star review. Optional collects 60–70% of what Required would, without the friction.
Customize your opt-in label to sound like you. "Yes, I'd like to receive updates and offers" is fine. "Yes, send me your sunset photos and last-minute deals" might be better — the more specific, the higher the opt-in rate.
