10 Ways to Collect Airbnb Guest Contact Info (Without Getting Flagged)

There's no question that OTAAS like Airbnb and VBO are cracking down on you getting your guests information so that they can book with you directly. And they take extreme measures if they catch you doing this. They will remove your account. They will even go as far as blacklisting your address so new accounts cannot be added to that address. But there's a lot of legitimate ways that don't violate any policies that you should be doing with each and every reservation to capture as much guest information as

possible. So, today we'll be breaking down all of those options. Welcome back to the Short-Term Rental Riches podcast. Let's just get right into it. The number one rule, the thing that you absolutely cannot do is solicit your guest information directly through the OTAA channel. So, directly through the message platform on Airbnb or VBO or Booking.com. This gets flagged right away. Of course, the OTAAS already know this, right? And they've put measures in place to make sure that you do not get your guests contact information. Let's

start with Airbnb. They currently mask any email that you receive on behalf of the guest. And they also create a temporary phone number that is not the actual phone number of your guest. Both of those expire after the guest's reservation. And if you didn't collect their information in another legitimate way, then you don't have their contact info. Vbombbooking.com. Do share the guest's name and email after the booking, but you got to make sure that you save it. Now, we're going to go through all the steps

pre-booking, during the booking, postbooking to capture as much guest information as possible, but we've also put together a little handy guide. You can grab it in the link down below. So, before you can get any value out of having your guests direct contact info, you need to have a direct booking website, right? We talked about that a lot on this channel. If you're new here, we've been running for over six years quick actionable episodes to help you with your short-term rentals or your portfolio. My team

and I manage 250 plus properties in over 40 cities and quite a few different countries now. So, we've learned a lot over the years and I hope you find all of our insight helpful. You can catch all of our prior episodes at strries.com. Okay, so in order to capture some value from this guest contact list, you need a place for them to book. A direct booking website is a requirement. Most PMS programs luckily have this built in where you can create at least a easy template

version really in just a few minutes. But if you want to take it a step further, well then you can go to a third-party company. There's lots of those these days that will integrate with your property management software but create you a much more custom website. I was recently interviewed on another podcast, Book Solid, with Gilchin and he runs a company called Crafted Stays. This is all they do is create custom websites for all their customers that integrate with the property management software that they're already

using. There's another company out there called Host AI that are making some really cool direct booking websites. So, if you're not happy with your existing one, I'd suggest reaching out, seeing what's currently available. All right, so there's really three times, three places where you can get your guest contact info. The first place is before they actually make a booking, when they're visiting your direct booking website. So, you want to make sure you have a popup on there. For example, something that pops up. Maybe you're offering

a discount. You capture their email and their phone number. I know Host AI, the website company I mentioned, even has a way for their potential guests to bid on future reservations if they didn't like the price it was showing up. So, there's some really clever ways out there to capture guest information before they actually make a decision to book with you at your property. Now, your direct booking website's not going to create demand on its own, right? So oftent times this is the place where repeat

guests go back to, but you can also drive that demand by doing your own social media. People browsing on Google. I hope that you have your properties listed on Google. Now you can also include your website on Google so it shows up on Google Maps. And again, make sure your website has something that you can offer the potential guest like a guide book or some sort of future value. Okay, so that's step one. You got a direct booking website. you have some creative ways to capture

guest contact info or potential guest contact info. Really, the big one is when you have guests at your property. You want to make sure you're capturing all that. And there's several ways to do that. The first one is you can have a pre-arrival or check-in form. We highly suggest having a rental agreement for every property where your guest is signing, maybe they're entering their name and their email, and then you simply capture it on the back end. Most of the industryleading PMS tools now like Hostway

or Guestie have these rental agreements built in. So, make sure you're taking advantage of that if you're not already. We use another company on the back end called Charge Automation that creates our guide books. It also handles our payment processing. Another note on that in a second, but we use this for our guide books and our rental agreement. So, it's a really easy way for us to capture all of our guest contact info. A lot of you out there have probably heard of guest verification tools.

So these are biometrics or running some additional security on the back end. Companies like Truvi, which was previously Superhog, or Enzo Connect or Safely, these companies can all do some additional security pre-check-in requirements that protect your property a little bit more, but also get that guest info for you. All right. Now, for a big one that I think most people probably overlook is that every time you process a payment through Stripe, you're capturing that guest's email in their name, and you should be saving that contact

list. We recently brought on some really luxurious properties. One of them actually has 23 bedrooms. Yeah. Way past Airbnb's guest limit. They can sleep over 100 people. And so, they have these massive corporate events, weddings, you name it. You better believe that adds up to a lot of guest contacts and luckily they were collecting them and they were able to use that list really easily. So their calendar wasn't looking quite as full. They sent out some mass messaging using a company called Quo or previously open

phone. They got a whole bunch of responses and they booked up their calendar. Of course, if they didn't have devices in the property or ways to capture that guest info, that would not be an option. So, if you're operating a luxury property or any sort of vacation rental, especially where you have guests coming back time and time again, it's really essential that you are collecting their info. Now, with AI and the tools that we have available, it's a lot easier to reach guests or potential guests

as well, but we have to have their contact info to have the option. So, those are a few options before the guests actually check in. You have a rental agreement. you have some sort of additional background check that you might be doing or you're processing that payment and capturing the contact info on the back end. Now, once the guest is already at your property, we've talked about StayFi a lot. This is what creates a splash page in your property. So, it's a device that connects your

internet router and when a guest shows up for the first time, what's one of the first things they do? They connect to the internet. This basically creates a splash screen between your guest and the internet. They need to put in their contact info first and then they have internet for the whole time they're there at the property. The beauty behind this is that you get to collect not just the person making the reservation, but essentially everyone there at the property or at least everyone that connects

to the internet. But you want to go a couple steps further. You want to make sure that you have some printed documents in your property. You want to make sure you have a QR code printed out that links to your digital guide book. Again, when that digital guide book opens, you can ask for their email. We like to put magnets right on the fridge. Most people end up seeing the fridge, right? It's also a reminder that they can book with you directly and also book with

you at the best rates. So, there's a few options during the stay. And lastly, we have some options after the stay after our guests have checked out. Remember, you don't want to be soliciting their contact info directly through the message platforms, but you can send links through the platform. So, after a guest has checked out, you want to of course send a message and say you hope that they had an amazing time. Now, you have one last opportunity after your guest check out, and that's in

a postf follow-up message. So, you should be just checking in with your guest regardless to say, "Hey, I hope you had a really good time." Maybe you want to mention something about the review process or let them know that you've already left them a five-star review. You have to be really careful again about asking for any sort of contact information in any message that goes through the platform. But you might do something a little bit more subtle and just remind them that the guide book is

theirs to keep and next time they're back in town. They're welcome to use it again. Of course, that guide book's going to have links to your direct booking website, right? So, the OTAAS are tremendously helpful, right? They spend millions of dollars to help us market our properties, but it's our obligation to make sure that we get our guest contact info. so we can build that relationship. And like our newest partners that just joined us, it creates an opportunity to help fill those calendars if they're not

looking as occupied as you want them to. I hope this episode gave you a couple other ideas and some good insights. Until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week.