Guests and reviews
Most guest questions are predictable, and so are most bad reviews. These guides cover the message sequence that answers them and how to earn reviews within Airbnb’s policy.
In short
What this topic covers
Guests ask much the same questions at much the same moments: right after booking, a few days before arrival, on the day itself, during the stay and after checkout. That predictability is what makes messaging manageable at scale. A sequence of scheduled messages, each sent at the moment a guest needs the information, answers most questions before they are asked, and leaves your attention free for the messages that really need a person, such as a late arrival, a fault in the unit or a complaint.
Reviews follow from the stay, but also from expectations. A guest who found exactly what the listing promised, got in without trouble and had a problem solved quickly has little reason to leave a poor rating. Airbnb’s review policy sets limits on what you can do to influence reviews: offering incentives, pressuring guests or threatening them over a review is not allowed, while asking politely for honest feedback is. Airbnb’s own badges, such as Guest favourite and Superhost, are built on ratings, reviews and reliability, and Superhost applies to the listing owner rather than to co-hosts.
The guides in this topic give message templates for the whole guest journey and explain how to earn 5-star reviews without breaking the review policy.
Guides
Start with the first guide
- GuideGuests
Airbnb guest message templates: the automated sequence from booking to review
Eight messages that cover a stay from booking to review, when to schedule each one on Airbnb and Booking.com, what to leave to AI replies, and what you are not allowed to send.
- Eight messages cover almost every stay, from booking confirmation to review request.
- Schedule the predictable ones once per listing; Airbnb and Booking.com both allow it.
- Airbnb’s AI replies draw on your amenities, description and house manual, so gaps in the listing become gaps in the answers.
- GuideGuests
Get 5-star reviews
How Airbnb reviews work, what the review policy forbids, what moves each category rating, how to ask for a review the right way, and why a co-host should watch Guest favourite rather than Superhost.
Terms and tools
Terms you’ll meet in this topic
About HostPro Academy
The team behind this guide
These guides are written by the team behind HostPro Academy, a training programme for building a short-term rental management business. The guests and reviews part of that programme is covered in levels 10 and 12.