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Set up your digital Guest Guide

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Give each guest one page with everything about their stay: directions and a map, house rules, WiFi details, online check-in, local recommendations, and extras they can book. That page is the Guest Guide, a digital welcome book Smoobu creates for every booking. You switch it on once, choose what it shows, and send each guest their personal link.

Before you start

Set these up first:

  • Each property's address, entered under Configuration > Website Builder > Accommodations > Details & Photos. This is the only place in Smoobu that stores it, and the guide's map and weather are based on it.
  • Guest messaging, so you can send guests their link automatically: .

What your guests see, and when

The Guest Guide is a personal webpage per booking: each guest opens their own link and sees only their stay. It combines built-in features with your own content blocks, and every piece is scoped to one or more display time periods: Before arrival, During stay, and After checkout. The periods switch at midnight, not at the check-in or check-out time, so anything a guest still needs on departure day (a door code, for example) should have After checkout ticked as well.

The built-in features you can activate:

  • Tours / Guides shows local recommendations through GetYourGuide.
  • Weather shows a live forecast for the property's location.
  • Review lets the guest rate their stay from the guide. These reviews are for you only and are not published on any public listing; you see them inside Smoobu on the booking itself.
  • Online check-in embeds your check-in form, so guests don't need a separate link: .
  • Book Next Stay invites the guest to book again.
  • Map shows the property's location, based on the address above.
  • Message gives the guest a message form; replies land in your Messages inbox.
  • Additional Items shows your bookable extras. Setting that up has its own article: Sell extras and services through the Guest Guide.
  • Luggage Storage - By LuggageHero and Luggage Storage - By Bounce offer guests luggage storage through these partners.

Steps

  1. Open Experience > Guest Guide.
  2. Set the guide to Enabled. The separate Weather Background toggle adds a live weather background to the guide.
  3. In Features, activate the features you want and tick each one's display time periods.
  4. In Content, create a content block for each topic of your own, such as house rules, WiFi details, or parking: give it a subject, write the text, pick an icon, set its display time periods, choose which properties it applies to, and click Save. Use Add language to add translations. To embed a video or a map in a block, switch the editor to code view (the <> button) and paste the embed code; check the result in the preview, because not every source renders. (To embed content on your website instead of the guide, see How do I edit my website?.)
  5. Click Preview to open the guide as a guest would see it.
  6. Send guests their link: put the [guestAppLink] placeholder into a message template, for example your booking confirmation or arrival message. Smoobu inserts each booking's personal guide link when the message is sent: .

Check it worked

Preview shows the features you activated and your content blocks. For an end-to-end test, send yourself a message containing [guestAppLink] on a test booking and open the link: you see exactly what that guest sees in the current display time period.

Common problems

The map shows my property in the wrong place

The pin is placed from the property address you entered under Configuration > Website Builder > Accommodations > Details & Photos; a typo or an incomplete address is the usual cause. Correct the address there and reopen the guide. For more causes, and a way to place the pin by hand, see .

The guide opens in the wrong language for a guest

The guide follows the booking's Language field. A content block shows the language variant that matches it; when no variant matches, the first language you saved for that block is shown. Add the missing language to the block with Add language, or correct the Language field on the booking.

Some channels hide or mask external links in guest messages, Airbnb in particular. Share the guide another way for those guests: put the link in your Airbnb listing description, or send it in a message on Airbnb itself after the guest has booked.

Still stuck?

If these steps didn't fix it, contact the Smoobu team: open the Help menu to open a ticket or book a call slot, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner. To get the fastest answer, please include:

  • Your Smoobu User ID (in the profile-icon menu, top right).
  • The property name or ID, if it's about one property.
  • The Booking ID, if it's about one booking (Bookings, then View more).
  • The channel name, if it's about channel sync (Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, and so on).
  • A short step-by-step: what you did, what you expected, and what happened.
  • Screenshots or a short screen recording of the problem.
  • Your browser and operating system, if something looks wrong on screen.

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