A better way to create Guidebooks: introducing new features from Airbnb

[Airbnb]

There’s a reason why millions of guests choose Airbnb: hosts like you—with your warm welcomes and unparalleled local knowledge. Many hosts already give their guests recommendations, from where to grab coffee to the best parks to secret spots. Instead of writing down tips for individual guests, Airbnb’s Guidebooks can help you save time and point guests in the right direction. And now, we’re reintroducing Guidebooks with new features that make it easier to use and more guest-friendly than ever.

The Guidebooks tool allows you to write about your favorite places, organize them by type, and share them with guests. To date, more than one million hosts have created 1.5 million Guidebooks on Airbnb. In the last few months, we’ve made changes to make Guidebooks easier to find, personalize, add to multiple listings, edit, share, and print.

“I clicked on my profile picture in the upper right, and saw ‘Your Guidebook’—excitement!” said Ann, a Superhost in New York City. “All of my Guidebooks are listed, and when I hover over each one, I can edit or share. Even better, I can now create one Guidebook for the area that will suit all three of my listings, and simply share it with every guest.”

Plus, guests will be able to access your Guidebook from your listing or by going to Trips, where it will automatically appear when the booking is confirmed. Creating a Guidebook once helps you optimize your time, and helps attract more potential guests.

Here’s how to make the most of Guidebooks, show off your city, and make your guests feel like they belong anywhere.

5 simple steps to create or edit a Guidebook

1. Find your Guidebook easily*

Go to Airbnb.com, and click on your profile photo. In the drop down menu, select “Your Guidebook.”

2. Create your new Guidebook

Click “Create.” For hosts who have already written Guidebooks, you’ll see them listed here**. Then, you can select “Create a list,” come up with a title, and add your recommendations.

3. Provide details

Once you add a recommendation, a window will pop up, asking you to share more details. When writing about your favorite places, think about what makes the place special, specify things to do and best times to go, use it as an opportunity to tell guests about the place’s history, and include any other important details they should know. These hosts offer up some great examples*** from their Guidebooks:

• Camellia is a superb place to try a simple Japanese tea ceremony. It's located in a beautiful old Japanese house just off Ninen-zaka, not far from Kiyomizu-dera. The host, Atsuko, speaks fluent English and explains the ceremony simply and clearly without making guests nervous.—Taka, Kyoto, Japan
• Mgarr is where the Maltese go to eat their favourite dish: rabbit. Talk-Ingliz Restaurant is our favourite place to have this delicious dish! Favourite menu: octopus and "bebbux" as starters, spaghetti rabbit as first dish and fried rabbit in garlic as mains...enjoy!!!—Martin, Rabat, Malta

Once you’ve added your recommendations, click “Save and Close”.

4. Personalize your Guidebook

Photos of your recommended places will appear automatically, so you won’t need to worry about taking photos of each place. However, you can customize your Guidebook by uploading your own cover photo and creating a title. Hosts recommend personalizing the title. For example:

• Ted & Eileen’s Guidebook - Wine, Dine & Things to Do!
• Most beautiful cities outside Riga
• Kylie’s Local Harlem Hot Spots

Then, choose the listing(s) you’d like the Guidebook to appear in. You can save time by using the same Guidebook for multiple listings.

5. Share your Guidebook with guests

When you publish your Guidebook, guests will be able to view your recommendations in a list and on a map, and they can access your Guidebook from your listing or by going to Trips. Plus, hosts and guests can share the recommendations via email or social media, and even print it out using the new buttons next to the Guidebook title.

Writing great recommendations can serve as another reason for guests to choose your listing. Every week, guests view Guidebooks hundreds of thousands of times. Recommendations from hosts also show up in “Things to do” and several other areas on Airbnb.com, which can bring even more eyes to a host’s listings. It’s also a great way to help support local businesses in your area.

With Guidebooks, hosts don’t have to be full-fledged tour guides. Instead, it’s a way to publish all of your favorite places and tips in one place, help your guests feel welcome and excited to explore your city, and lay the groundwork for a five-star stay.

______________________________________________________________________

*Hosts can also get to their Guidebooks by clicking here.

**Guidebooks are now linked to the primary host’s account, not to the individual listing. Guidebooks created before this change were not deleted; they were relocated and can be found under the user instead of the listing. To learn more about Guidebooks features, see What’s a Guidebook?

***Excerpts from Host Guidebooks have been edited for length and clarity.

[Shaun124]

This sounds like a whole new job, They city has tons of brochers of all the things needed in a guidebook. I would rather lkeave those in the property than re invent the wheel

[Russ1]

I'll admit there is work involved but I'm pretty proud about how I've sent many visitors to my neighborhood businesses (breakfast restaurants, breweries and pizza places in particular) by way of my guidebook. By supporting local businesses, I help them with additional customers/revenues and enhance their understanding of the value Airbnb brings to them and to our local tax base.

[David1313]

I spent a lot of energy on my guidebook and guests have requested printed copies to use in the room. This version of the guidebook however, is AWFUL for printing. I won't be able to update the printed version I have from this! Please get this fixed ASAP. I am much less motivated to add new items to this as the more work I do, the more the print version I have will vary from the online version. I have printed it for my guest room quarterly to reflect the demise of restaurants or bars, new businesses, or expansion of what I have included.

Also, I support requests to be able to use our own photos. Some of the ones selected are quite puzzling as to how they relate to the business or attraction. And some don't have photos at all!

Finally, can we reorder the items in these lists? They seem to appear now in order of when I added them. This is not necessarily a sensible order for viewing them.  Or, can they be alphabetical within sections if you don't want to let us manually reorder them?

[Simon709]

It wont print. Please fix!!

[Lawrence1]

I previously created a guidebook ebook about all the places to visit in SF a few years ago when it debuted.  I can no longer find any of the content I provided.

 What happened to the old content?

[Roslyn-and-Yossi0]

The new print-out is missing the addresses and the proximity map .  What's the use if this vital information is gone??  Makes it too hard for guests!!!  

[John2279]

I am a new host and writing a guidebook seemed like a great idea...until I read all of the negative comments!  My hope is that AirBNB realizes a number of new hosts will not use this feature until they address the very valid concerns expressed above.

John

[Susan10]

Why is Airbnb trying to reinvent the wheel?  I have to say this is very underwhelming.  90 percent of my guest simply use Google search, Trip Advisor, Yelp and other social media.  I am listing/creating a guidebook just to say they are my favorites?  This is a redundant effort.

[Karen1707]

Can I add a non-commercial favourite to my Guidebook?  For example, favourite beaches?

[Denice0]

I created 3 guidebooks when they first came out.  Then it became very hard to make changes, so I quit waisting my time. Then I noticed Airbnb combined all the guidebooks in my community and rated recommended locations by how many hosts recommended the place.  This was not what I had intended! I am now hesitant to add my recommendations, to have it hijacked for other undisclosed purposes.

[Andrew1293]

I already have a 25 page guidebook that I keep a hard-copy in the house and have been emailing my guests since before I joined AirBnB.

Is those a way I can make this PD downloadable PDF to my guests? 

[Zoe75]

Prior to Guidebook upgrades the URLs were short and easy. Now they are long and convoluted. Can you provide the old style URL? Thanks.

[Lorna-And-Dean0]

Hi, all sounds like positive progress towards more 

personalisation of a hosts listing... however, the editing facility doesn’t even appear to allow you to change the title of your guidebook - you know, the one that used to say it was OUR guidebook, but which Airbnb auto changed without telling us to Guidebook of Necton (a small village) which did not reflect the county wide content that we had incorporated into it???

It would be useful if Airbnb considered the potential outcomes of changes (perhaps with further host consultations) before they implement changes. 

We welcome greater pro activity towards the host experience, just need to try and get these things right first time?

[Kojiro-And-Seanacey0]

Yes!!  I am so tired of random changes to the hosting platform seemingly without having any proper testing or bug fixes done beforehand.  It makes for a very frustrating experience for both hosts and guests. 

[Evelyn121]

Bad idea from the host's viewpoint.  Would much prefer my own guidebook, which I've very carefully created, than to contribute to the efforts of eiher other guests or Airbnb's 'concept.