Record a voice walk-through of the property, turn it into text, and give that text to an AI assistant with instructions to use only what you said and to flag every gap. Then fix the gaps, test the result on a stranger, and paste it into the House manual section of Airbnb's arrival guide.
The AI never knows your house. It formats and tidies, and the facts come from you. The risk is a manual that reads perfectly and is wrong in small ways: a bin day it guessed, a dishwasher setting it invented, a model name with one letter changed. Airbnb's help page on the house manual says only guests with a confirmed reservation can open it, which is why it can carry practical detail, although door codes still belong in your check-in instructions.
A ten-stop route for the voice walk-through
Walk the property with your phone's recorder running and talk as if a guest were beside you. Speaking is faster than typing, and it brings out what you do without thinking: the knob you have to hold in, the door that sticks, the switch behind the sofa. At about 150 words a minute, a 24-minute walk through a one-bedroom flat gives roughly 3,600 words of raw material (an illustrative figure).
| Stop | Say aloud | Photograph |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Outside, arriving | Where to park (bay number, which side of the street), which gate or door to use, how many steps, how the building looks from the road | The bay and the entrance from the road |
| 2. The front door | How guests get in, where the lockbox or keypad is, the steps to open it, what to do if it will not open. Never say the code | The box or keypad, close up |
| 3. Hall and fuse box | Where the fuse box, water stopcock and torch are, and what to do if the power trips | The fuse box with its labels readable |
| 4. Heating and hot water | Where the controls are, how to boost, how long hot water takes, what the boiler lights mean | The controller and the boiler panel |
| 5. Kitchen | Each appliance in turn, the exact label text on each setting, what is provided (washing-up liquid, salt, oil) | Every control panel, straight on |
| 6. Living room | Which remote, which TV input, how to open each streaming app (no passwords), how the sofa bed works | The remote and the input menu |
| 7. Bathroom | Which way is hot, the extractor switch, where spare towels and loo roll live, the hairdryer | The shower control |
| 8. Bedrooms | Spare bedding, blackout blinds, any window or drawer that sticks | The bedding cupboard |
| 9. Outside and bins | Which bins, which day, where they live, the gate latch, shared areas | The bins and the collection calendar |
| 10. Leaving | How the door locks and where the key goes | The lockbox or key return point |
Three habits make the recording usable. Say label text exactly as printed ("Eco 50", not "the eco one"). Say "new section" and the room name at each stop, so the transcript arrives with its own headings. And say "unsure" out loud whenever you are, which puts the gap in the text where the AI can find it. Never read a code aloud: say "the code goes here" and add it later.
Getting from speech to a transcript you can trust
You need text, not audio. Use whichever of these your phone already does: the dictation microphone on the keyboard, a voice-memo app that produces a transcript, or the microphone button in the chat app you will use for the draft. Some assistants also take an audio file directly, so check yours.
Speech-to-text copes with ordinary words and stumbles on model names, network names and anything with capital letters. Before the AI sees the transcript, scan it for digits and proper nouns and correct each against your photos. The assistant repeats an error with complete confidence, and a wrong digit in a bin day or a model name means a confused guest and a message at 11 pm.
Keep credentials out of the chat altogether. The wifi password and alarm code go into the finished manual by hand. The door code belongs in your check-in instructions, which Airbnb shows guests 48 hours before check-in, so it does not have to live in the manual at all.
The prompt that stops the AI inventing things
Paste this above the transcript. Each numbered rule closes a specific gap that assistants like to fill with something plausible.
You are helping a short-term rental host turn a spoken walk-through into a guest house manual.
The transcript below is the ONLY source of facts.
Rules
1. Use only facts stated in the transcript. Never add a brand, setting, time, number, distance or instruction that is not there.
2. Where a section needs a fact the transcript lacks, write [MISSING: what is needed] on its own line.
3. Where the transcript contradicts itself, write [CHECK: what conflicts].
4. Use the placeholders [WIFI PASSWORD] and [ALARM CODE]; I will add the real ones myself. Where a door code would go, write "see your check-in instructions".
5. Sections in this order: wifi, arrival and parking, heating and hot water, kitchen and appliances, bathroom, bedrooms, TV, bins and recycling, safety, leaving. Numbered steps for anything with steps, bullets for the rest.
6. Plain, friendly British English, under 1,200 words, no greetings or filler.
7. Describe how things work. Do not write rules, requests or warnings about guest behaviour.
8. Finish with a numbered list of every [MISSING] and [CHECK] item.
TRANSCRIPT:
[paste here]Rules 1 to 3 do the real work. Without them the assistant writes "press Start" for a dishwasher whose Start button you never mentioned. Rule 7 keeps behaviour rules out of the manual. Airbnb's policy on reasonable house rules and requests, which applies to reservations booked on or after 20 November 2026, says hosts may not communicate new house rules or requests in other sections of the listing or after booking, including by message or signs in the home. Rules and requests belong in the listing's own rules section; the manual explains how things work. Rule 8 turns the output into a to-do list, which is how to treat the whole draft: a first pass that tells you what you still owe it.
One flat from start to finish: 24 minutes of talking, 80 in total
The property is a one-bedroom flat on the second floor of a converted house, sleeping two. Every figure here is illustrative, but the proportions are realistic. The host records the walk-through (24 minutes), skims the transcript for digits and names and corrects six of them against photos (8 minutes), then runs the prompt above (4 minutes). The assistant returns 11 sections of about 1,140 words, plus 14 flags. The opening of that first draft looked like this:
Wifi. Network: Flat2 [CHECK: the transcript also says Flat-2]. Password: [WIFI PASSWORD]. The router is in the hall. [MISSING: where in the hall, and how to restart it]
Heating and hot water. 1. The controller is on the wall by the front door. 2. Press Boost for extra heat. [CHECK: boost length given as both 30 and 60 minutes]
Nine flags can be settled from photos and memory in ten minutes. The other five need the host at the flat, and they take 14 minutes including the trip. A sample of the list:
| Flag from the assistant | How it was settled |
|---|---|
| MISSING: bin collection day | Calendar photographed at the bins: general waste Tuesday, recycling every other Tuesday |
| CHECK: heating boost given as both 30 and 60 minutes | Pressed it with a timer running: 60 minutes |
| MISSING: which dishwasher programme to use | Read from the panel photo: Eco 50 |
| MISSING: where the router is and how to restart it | Hall cupboard; unplug for ten seconds, plug back in, wait two minutes |
| CHECK: network name given as "Flat2" and "Flat-2" | Router sticker says Flat-2 |
| MISSING: where spare bedding lives | Bottom shelf of the bedroom wardrobe (photo) |
| MISSING: extractor fan switch | A pull cord inside the bathroom door |
| MISSING: where the first-aid kit is | Kitchen drawer under the kettle |
With the gaps closed and the codes added by hand, the host gives the draft to a friend who has never visited and asks for six tasks, timing each. Four pass at once: joining the wifi (1 minute), boosting the heating (1 minute), running the shower and locking up. Two fail. The dishwasher takes four minutes because the draft said "press Start" and the button carries only a play-pause symbol, so the manual now describes the symbol. The friend cannot find the bins because "in the side passage" means nothing to a stranger, so the draft gains a photo and the line "lift the gate latch, don't slide it". The two repeat tasks then pass in under two minutes each.
Total time: 24 minutes recording, 8 correcting the transcript, 4 on the AI pass, 10 on the nine photo-answerable flags, 14 at the flat for the other five, and 20 for the stranger test and fixes. That is 80 minutes, most of it spent on checking rather than writing.
Rambling in, steps out: one appliance before and after
Raw speech holds the knowledge but not the order. Here is a typical dishwasher passage from a transcript:
The dishwasher's under the counter, it's a bit awkward, you've got to push the door till it clicks, then there's the dial, I usually put it on the eco one, then the start button thing, takes about three hours, and the tablets are in the cupboard left of the sink. Oh, and a little light goes red while it's running.
The assistant, following the prompt, returns:
- Put one tablet in the dispenser. Tablets are in the cupboard to the left of the sink.
- Push the door shut until it clicks.
- Turn the dial to Eco.
- Press the start button. A red light shows while it runs, and a cycle takes about three hours.
[CHECK: which control is the "start button thing", and does the red light mean running or finished?]
The flag is the useful part. A careless assistant would have written "press Start" and moved on. The host reads the panel, finds the Eco 50 label and the play-pause symbol, and the final step becomes: "Press the button marked with the play-pause symbol (bottom right). The light turns red while it runs." Notice that the tablets line moved to the top, because a stranger needs the tablet before the door.
Section order, length and what stays out of the manual
Airbnb's advice on writing a house manual is brief: put the wifi password first because it is one of the first things guests ask for, give clear parking directions, say where safety devices and the router are, explain appliances in step-by-step instructions, and keep everything short. The table turns that into an order, with the question each section heads off.
| Section | What goes in | The message it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| Wifi | Network name, password, router location, what to do if it drops | "What's the wifi?" |
| Arrival and parking | Which bay or side of the street, how to find the entrance, steps and lifts | "Where do I park?" |
| Heating and hot water | Controller, boost, how long hot water takes, a reset only if you are happy for guests to try it | "It's cold" or "no hot water" |
| Kitchen and appliances | One short numbered list per appliance that needs it, in the label's own words | "How does the oven work?" |
| Bathroom and bedrooms | Shower control, extractor, spare towels and bedding, blackout blinds | "Is there another blanket?" |
| TV | Which remote, which input, how to open each app | "Nothing is on the TV" |
| Bins and recycling | Which bins, where they live, which day | A neighbour's note on day three |
| Safety | Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, fire extinguisher, first-aid kit, fuse box, stopcock | A panic that is harder to fix than any question |
| Leaving | How the door locks and where the key goes | "Where do I leave the key?" |
Two things stay out. The first is behaviour rules. "Quiet after 10 pm" and "please take your shoes off" are house rules or requests, and Airbnb's policy puts them in one place in the listing. Under the policy, a manual line like that risks counting as a new rule communicated outside the rules section, so keep it in the listing's rules section and let the manual describe how things work. The tutorial on writing house rules and check-in messages covers that side.
The second is local recommendations. Airbnb's help page also points to a separate guidebook feature, the natural home for local tips, which keeps the manual about the house itself and short enough to scan.
A flat, a cottage and a room in your own home
The same prompt produces different manuals because the properties hide different problems.
| Property | Needs the most space | Easy to forget |
|---|---|---|
| A city flat in a shared building | Entrance, buzzer or intercom, lift or stairs, the communal bin store, visitor parking | Which letterbox or buzzer label guests will see, and that the lift is slow |
| A remote cottage | Heating and the log burner, what to do in a power cut, where the torch and spare fuel are, the drive in the dark | That mobile signal is poor and the wifi is the only reliable link |
| A room in your own home | Which areas guests use, which bathroom, which fridge shelf, laundry arrangements | When you are usually around and how guests reach you without knocking |
Look at the third column. It is the detail only you know, and it is the one a generic template never contains. If you cannot think of one for your property, replay the recording: the "oh, and one thing" asides are usually it.
Fact-checking the draft in three passes
A manual that reads well is not necessarily right. Check it in three passes, cheapest first.
Pass one: an auditor chat
Open a new chat, so the model has no memory of writing the draft, and paste in the transcript and the manual:
Below are a host's spoken transcript and a house manual written from it.
List every statement in the manual that is not directly supported by the transcript.
Quote the manual line, then say what the transcript says instead, or that it says nothing.
Do not rewrite anything.This catches embellishments: a coffee machine the transcript never mentioned, or "quiet hours" that came from nowhere. It cannot catch a mistake that was in your own speech.
Pass two: your eyes against the property
Highlight every number, time, name and instruction in the draft and tick each against something physical: the appliance label, the router sticker, the bin calendar, a stopwatch. Your walk-through photos are the evidence.
Pass three: a stranger with a stopwatch
Hand the draft to someone who has never been in the property, with six tasks to perform. Airbnb's own check-in advice says the same thing in other words: use the arrival guide preview to see what guests see, and have someone test your instructions. A cleaner who did not write the manual is ideal, because they are in the property most often. The handover sheet in the tutorial on coordinating cleaners and changeovers is a good place to add "try one manual instruction each visit".
| What goes wrong | How it shows up | Which pass catches it |
|---|---|---|
| An invented day or time (bin day, hot water wait) | Bins out on the wrong evening; a cold shower | Two, against the calendar or a timer |
| Generic appliance steps ("press Start") | A message about the dishwasher on night one | Three |
| An amenity you do not have | A "not as listed" complaint | One |
| The wrong word for a setting | A guest cannot find "Eco" because the label says "Auto" | Two, against the label |
| A behaviour rule that came from nowhere | A clash with the listing's rules, outside the place Airbnb says rules belong | One, plus prompt rule 7 |
| A safety instruction you never gave | The worst case of all | One. Delete anything on gas, fire or electrics that is not yours, and have an adviser check what remains |
Arrival guide, printed sheet and QR code: where each piece lives
In Airbnb the house manual sits inside the arrival guide: Listings, your listing, Listing editor, Arrival guide, then House manual. The same guide holds the check-in method (smart lock, keypad, lockbox, building staff, in-person greeting or other) and your check-in instructions. Airbnb's help article does not say what formatting the manual field supports, so type numbered steps as plain "1." lines and use the arrival guide preview to see what guests will see. Airbnb's check-in advice also suggests adding photos or a video of the steps to get inside, which is worth doing for any door with a trick.
Airbnb's pages give two timings. Guests with a confirmed reservation can see the arrival guide, house manual included, in their Trips tab as soon as the booking is confirmed, but the detailed check-in instructions only appear 48 hours before check-in. So the manual can be read days ahead while the door steps arrive later; tell guests in your own pre-arrival message where each one is. The sequence of messages in the tutorial on nine Airbnb message templates from booking to checkout shows where that line fits.
The printed backup
Airbnb's own advice includes a laminated, easy-to-clean sign with wifi instructions in the space itself. Take that further with one page by the router or on the fridge: wifi details, how to reach you, and the two instructions guests need in a hurry (the hot water reset and the fuse box). Keep it to a single page, one side only.
A QR code to the longer copy
A QR code on that page can open a longer version with photos, which also helps a second adult who never opened the Airbnb app. Making it work takes six decisions:
- Where it lives. Put the longer copy somewhere a guest can open without an account, such as a PDF in cloud storage or a published page, set so that anyone with the link can view it. Test it in a private browser window on your phone, signed out.
- Static, not dynamic. A static code holds your link itself. Some generators sell "dynamic" codes that route through their own address and may stop working if a trial or subscription lapses, so check which kind you are making before you print.
- Test it twice. Scan the printed sheet with two different phones in the lighting where it will hang.
- A fallback. Print the short web address in small type under the code.
- Edit in place. When the manual changes, edit the same document rather than uploading a new one, so the link and the printed code stay valid.
- Leave secrets out. A link can be forwarded and a photo of the sheet exposes it. Keep door codes, alarm codes and the wifi password in Airbnb's arrival guide (and the wifi details on the printed sign inside), not in the web copy.
Using last year's guest messages to find the gaps
Your best evidence of a missing section is what guests have already asked. Copy 20 to 30 guest questions from your Airbnb inbox, remove names, phone numbers and addresses, and paste them in:
Here are 25 questions guests sent a host during stays. Names are removed.
Group them by topic and count each topic.
Then compare with the house manual below and tell me which topics the manual does not cover,
and which it covers but guests still asked about.
Report only what is in the messages and the manual. Do not guess answers.
QUESTIONS:
[paste here]
MANUAL:
[paste here]An illustrative result: wifi 6, parking 5, heating 4, dishwasher 3, bins 3, noise from neighbours 2, late check-in 2. The three biggest topics account for 15 of 25 questions, or 60%. Wifi and parking were covered but asked about anyway, which usually means guests asked before they opened the manual, so the answer belongs in the pre-arrival message as well. Heating was covered, yet three of the four questions came at night, so a printed card by the thermostat is the fix. Bins were not covered, so they join the manual. Noise and late check-in are not manual topics.
Update triggers and a one-line change log
A manual goes wrong slowly: a new router, a replaced oven, a changed collection day. Decide in advance what counts as a trigger.
| What changed | What to update | How to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| An appliance was replaced | Its section and its photo | Read the new panel; run one cycle |
| Router or internet provider changed | Network name, password, restart steps, the printed sheet | Join from a guest device |
| Bin or collection arrangements changed | Bins section and the printed sheet | The new calendar, photographed |
| Heating or hot water was serviced or replaced | Controls, boost time, reset steps | The engineer's notes, then a timer |
| A guest asks the same question twice | The section that should have answered it | Re-read it as a stranger |
| A complaint traces to missing information | The section named in the fix log | Watch the next five stays |
Keep a change log with one line per edit: date, section, what changed, why, and who checked it. Put "Last checked" and a date at the top of the manual itself, which tells you when it last had attention. The fix log described in the tutorial on replying to Airbnb guest complaints feeds this directly, since many complaints end with "add it to the manual".
AI helps with upkeep. Paste the existing section and the change in one sentence, ask for the updated section only, and check any figures it touches. Every quarter, spend 15 minutes with the manual open, standing in each room and trying each instruction. If you keep a copy in a second language, update both and have a fluent reader check the numbers and appliance names, using the method in the tutorial on translating business documents with a human check.
House manual questions hosts ask
Should the wifi password go in the manual or a message?
Put it near the top of the house manual. Airbnb's own advice is to lead with the wifi password because it is one of the first things guests ask for, and only guests with a confirmed reservation can open the manual. Keep it off any public web page, and add a printed copy by the router as a backup.
Can guests read the house manual before they book?
No. Airbnb's help page says only guests with a confirmed reservation can access it. Anything a guest needs in order to decide whether to book, such as stairs, shared spaces or no air conditioning, belongs in the listing itself, where it also protects you from not-as-listed complaints.
Which AI assistant should I use for the first draft?
Any of the main chat assistants, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, can turn a text transcript into sections. A free account is usually enough for a one-off job, though limits change, so check the current ones. What matters more is the instruction to use only your transcript and to flag every gap.
How long should the house manual be?
Airbnb's advice is to keep it short and easy to understand. I would aim for something a guest can scan in about two minutes, roughly 800 to 1,200 words in short sections, with step-by-step instructions only for appliances that need them, and photos or a longer printed copy for the rest.
Further reads
- Airbnb Listing Description Written With AI: Title, Summary, Rules — Make the listing text promise only what the manual delivers.
- How to Write B&B Room Descriptions and Guest Guides With AI — Guest guides and room descriptions for B&B owners.
- Hospitable Airbnb Software: What Each Plan's AI Actually Does — What an AI reply tool can do with your property details.
- Is HostBuddy AI Worth It for an Airbnb Host? — Whether an AI guest-reply tool is worth paying for.
- Airbnb Co-Host Business: Run Several Owners' Properties With AI — One manual per owner when you manage several homes.
- Airbnb Upselling: Early Check-In, Late Checkout and Extras With AI — Offer extras without breaking the manual's promises.
- Best AI for Airbnb Hosts: Lodgify, Hospitable, Guesty, HostBuddy — Lodgify AI Co-Host, Hospitable, Guesty ReplyAI and HostBuddy compared on what each handles, list prices and how to test them.
- ChatGPT for Short-Term Rentals: 10 Host Jobs and the Prompts to Use — Ten host jobs from listing text to cleaning briefs, each with a prompt, a copy-ready sample and the checks to run before a guest sees it.
- Holiday Let Website: Get Direct Bookings and Repeat Guests With AI — A page-by-page plan for a direct-booking holiday let site, with Lodgify and Wix compared, a calendar-sync test and the sum for break-even.
- How to Automate Airbnb Messages: Test the AI Before You Switch It On — A pre-launch test script for Airbnb AI replies: wrong-answer traps, refund and safety requests, prompt tricks, pass marks and a staged switch-on.
- How to Respond to Airbnb Reviews With AI: Glowing, Mixed, Bad — Draft replies to glowing, mixed and bad Airbnb reviews with AI, check every claim against a facts sheet, and know when to report instead of reply.
- AI Agents for Short-Term Rentals: What a Host Can Do Today — Ten host jobs rated from hand over to keep, with the checks that stop an AI agent promising refunds or double-booking your cleaner.
- AI Chatbot for Vacation Rentals: What It Should Not Answer — A three-question test, a sorted list of guest messages, hand-off wording and twelve test messages for a rental chatbot that knows its limits.
- Can Airbnb Hosts Use AI to Reply to Guests? What Airbnb Allows — What Airbnb's own pages say about AI-written guest replies, five ways to use AI from safest to riskiest, and what you stay responsible for.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Airbnb Help Centre articles on adding a house manual, adding check-in instructions and what guests see once a booking is confirmed; Airbnb's hosting advice on writing a house manual and making check-in easy; Airbnb's policy on reasonable house rules and requests; all read in October 2026.