What a short welcome book should include

A welcome book is not a guidebook to the city. Guests already have one on their phone. The book on the nightstand has a narrower job: explain this house, in the order a stay actually happens, in language a tired person can use without calling you.

By Halivs · Updated October 23, 2026

How long should a welcome book be?

About sixteen pages is plenty for an apartment or a small house. Past that, people stop opening it and go back to messaging you, which defeats the object. If a section does not prevent a message or a mistake, cut it. A cafe you would genuinely send a friend to can stay. A list of twenty restaurants will not be read, and it dates the book the week one of them closes.

Write in the order of the stay, not the order you thought of the facts. Arrival first. The house second. House rules where they apply, not as a lecture up front. Checkout last, in the same words you use on the counter.

Arrival, before anything else

Open with how to get in. Door code or lockbox, which entrance, where to park, and what to do if the code fails. Name the backup — your number, or a co-host — so a guest at the door is not guessing. If there is a gate, a fob, or a second door, say it in the same section. Do not bury arrival on page six behind a welcome letter. The letter can wait until they are inside.

Use the same method the listing uses. Two different ways in is how the arrival text starts.

The house, appliance by appliance

Write what is slightly unusual, not what every kitchen has. Which burner is temperamental. That the oven runs hot. How the dishwasher actually starts. Where the extra towels are. How the heat or the air conditioning works, including the setting you want left when they go. Thermostats produce more messages than any other appliance, because the interface is never the one the guest has at home. A photo is optional. A sentence that names the buttons is not.

WiFi belongs here too, even if a printed card already sits by the bed. The book is the copy that survives when the card is in a suitcase or the frame is empty. Same network name, same password, same spelling.

Quiet hours, trash, and neighbours

State quiet hours as a clock time, not a mood. Say which day the bins go out and where they live, including a locked chute or a gate code if there is one. If the building has a rule about shoes, smoking, or the shared hallway, put it in the book and in the listing so the two agree. A rule that appears for the first time at checkout feels like a trap, and guests write reviews about traps.

The neighborhood, lightly

Three places is a better list than a directory: one coffee, one grocery, one walk. Note anything a visitor would not infer — the grocery that closes early, the hill that looks walkable and is not, the street that floods after rain. If you would not send a friend, leave it out.

Checkout, already decided

End with the same checkout list you leave on the counter. Time, keys, lights, thermostat, and a few small requests, like used dishes in the sink and towels in one place. Add “please leave the beds as they are,” so a careful guest does not strip a bed you would rather remake yourself. From November 20, 2026, Airbnb doesn’t allow checkout chores, so keep these as requests. The book should repeat that list, not invent a second policy.

Produce it as a document you can edit, then export a PDF for the house. Ordinary letter paper is enough: stapled, or in a slim binder. Keep one copy where people sit in the evening and a spare with your supplies. Reprint when a code, a rule, or a cafe changes. A book with last year’s lockbox code is not a charm. It is a wrong instruction.