Building a welcome book

A welcome book is one web page a guest opens on arrival. It is the single highest-return thing in Isle Stay for the time it takes: most of the messages a host gets during a stay are answered by a good one.

Welcome books are on every plan, including free.

Start one

Open Welcome Books and choose to add one.

You can attach it to a property or leave it standalone. Standalone is genuinely useful - if you manage somewhere you have not listed, or you want one guide covering a whole building, it does not need a property to exist.

It stays a draft until you publish it. Nothing is reachable before then.

The sections

The editor is grouped the way a guest reads, not the way a database is shaped.

🏠 Property information

The name of the place, the address, which apartment or unit, the parish and country, and a map link.

Paste a Google Maps link for an exact pin. This matters more than it sounds: on most islands the postal address will not get a taxi to the door, and a dropped pin will.

📞 Contact info

Phone, WhatsApp, email, business name.

Put the WhatsApp number in if you have one. It is how guests on island actually contact people, and it turns "I could not reach anyone" into a message you can answer.

🖼️ Images and video

A cover image, your logo or photo, a gallery, and a video.

The cover is what they see first. Your photo - an actual face - does more for how the stay feels than a second shot of the pool.

🚪 Entry, wifi and the stay

The part everyone opens the book for.

• Entry instructions - the lockbox, the gate code, which door
• Wifi network and password - typed exactly, including capitals
• Check-out - the time and what you want them to do
• Local tips - the beach, the bakery, the supermarket
• Emergency contact - a real number that answers

Write the wifi password exactly as it is. Coral2024! and coral2024! are a support message apart.

📝 Custom sections

A title and some text, as many as you like. This is where the specific stuff goes - how the aircon remote works, which day the bins go out, the trick with the shower, the beach that has the current.

A useful rule: every time you answer the same question twice, it becomes a custom section.

The two options most hosts miss

Both live under Options, and both are worth turning on.

Email me when a guest opens this book. You find out they have arrived without asking. It is also the quickest way to know a code you sent did not work - no open, no arrival.

Expiry. Set a number of days, counted from the first view, or expire after the first view entirely. Last season's guests keep their memories; they do not need to keep your wifi password and gate code.

Access codes

Under Access code you can set something like CORAL24. Leave it blank and the book is a public link.

Use a code when the book contains a door code, gate code or alarm. The link is unguessable, but unguessable is not the same as private - links get forwarded, and a code means a forwarded link is not a key to the house.

Publish and share

Switch it from Draft to Published and it gets a link.

The best way to hand it over is a QR code pointing at it - on the fridge, inside the door, in the folder. See Guest pages, welcome books and QR codes for what to print.

Send the link in your pre-arrival message too. Guests who read it on the plane ask fewer questions on arrival.

If something is wrong

The guest says the link does not work. Check three things in order: is it still a draft, has it expired, and does it have an access code they were not given?

It says "This guide has expired". Expiry counts from the guest's first view, not from when you made it. Turn expiry off or raise the number of days and it will open again.

The wifi will not connect. Check the password field for a trailing space - copying from a router label picks one up surprisingly often.

On the free plan it says "Powered by Isle Stay". That is the free-plan line, and a paid plan removes it. See Getting started.