Communicating important information with guests

[Louise1278]

I always used to use the email alias in the Reservation Details section to send an email and map to my guests. It worked well and meant that guests could easily print the map in advance of their journey. It also meant I could be sure that guests were absolutely clear about the property before visiting. I wanted to pre-empt any difficulties that might arise from their not properly checking out all the details. 

I have just had a short-notice booking from a guest due to visit in a couple of days time. I looked for the email alias and it had disappeared. I checked previous guests and theirs was gone too. I phoned the superhost helpline and was told that Airbnb now wants all communication to take place on the platform. I asked how to attach a document to a message and was told to screenshot a picture of it and send it via Messages. The link I was sent tells me: 

You can always share important documents with guests through Airbnb messaging by including direct links to those documents in messages. You can send document links in messages to a guest once they’ve confirmed reservation with you.

How do I do this? Can anyone help? My Google Drive requires an email address for the receiver to add them to my list of people with whom I can share the document!!

[Robert7432]

To share a document with your guests via Airbnb messaging, you can include a direct link to the document in your message. Once your guest has confirmed their reservation with you, you can send them the link to the document.

If you have the document saved in Google Drive, you can share it with your guests by creating a sharing link. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open Google Drive and locate the document you want to share.
2. Right-click on the document and select “Get link”.
3. In the pop-up window, select “Anyone with the link” under “Link sharing on”.
4. Copy the link and paste it into your Airbnb message.

Your guests will be able to access the document by clicking on the link in your message.

If you don’t want to use Google Drive, there are other ways to share documents without requiring an email address. For example, you can use Dropbox or OneDrive to create a sharing link that can be sent via Airbnb messaging .

I hope this helps!

[Lorna170]

@Robert7432  While your advice to @Louise1278 is helpful, it will only work if the guest agrees to click on a link.  Others have suggested asking for the email address via the platform.

My guests don't understand why I am asking them for their email.  They filled in all that information when they booked.  My guests also become uncomfortable and will not click links.  (And neither do I).

AirBnB needs to rethink their policy of hiding information from hosts.  At this rate, hosts will not have ANY idea about who they are hosting -- we might as well just leave the barn doors open.

@Bhumika  -- Can you pass on to the powers that be that communication with our guests is important and they have made it nigh impossible to do so.

[Louise1278]

Thanks for your advice. I've sent my guest the link and will wait and see if it works for her.

I remain frustrated and annoyed by Airbnb's attempts to control how we communicate with our guests. These are our properties, our businesses and our guests. We work hard to ensure that we meet guests' expectations and Airbnb makes a healthy profit from us. Please just let us do our jobs in the way that works for us. 

Thanks for the support @Robert7432 and @Lorna170