How to Write Airbnb Local Recommendations Guests Actually Use
Guests do not need a second TripAdvisor. They need a short list of places you would send a friend to — with one reason each and one practical detail that saves a wasted trip.
Quick answer: Write Airbnb local recommendations as a curated local guide, not a tourist directory. Cover everyday essentials first (coffee, food, groceries, pharmacy, getting around). Aim for a few confident picks per category, not dozens of links. For every place, use three parts: name, why you picked it, and one practical detail (walk time, reservation note, cash-only, what to skip). Keep the list separate from a longer things-to-do / day-trip section. Update it when venues change.
This guide is for Airbnb hosts and small vacation-rental property managers who want local tips guests actually open — whether those tips live in a message, a document, or a digital guidebook.
It sits beside TapStay’s Airbnb welcome book checklist (where local recommendations are one of nine sections). Here we go deep on that section only.
What guests need from local tips
Airbnb’s own hosting guidance notes that guests often ask for local recommendations for dining, sightseeing, shopping, and outdoors — and that a guidebook is a way to keep those suggestions in one place you can share and update. Their tips are straightforward: keep it brief, make it personal, hit the highlights, and review it over time. (Airbnb Resource Center — Create a guidebook to share your local tips, updated May 1, 2024.)
That aligns with what shows up in inboxes: “Where should we eat?” is often less a request for twenty options than a request for a trustworthy shortlist.
Everyday essentials vs attractions
A useful local guide answers the first 48 hours:
- Where do we get coffee in the morning?
- Where do we buy food without a research project?
- Where is a pharmacy if someone needs it?
- How do we get around from this door?
- Where should we eat tonight without guessing?
Attractions, tours, and “must-see” lists can wait in a separate things-to-do section. Essentials reduce friction. Attractions entertain. Mixing them into one unsorted dump makes the essentials harder to find.
Why “where should we eat?” may still reach you
Even with a guidebook link in the booking thread, guests may still message when:
- the list is too long to scan on a phone
- every entry sounds the same (“great food!”)
- there is no walk time or other practical detail
- a place is closed and the list was never updated
- the tips are buried after arrival logistics they already solved
Curation is not about writing more. It is about making the next useful answer obvious.
Use a moments framework before you brainstorm restaurants
Before you open Maps, walk through the stay as a guest. A simple way to organize your recommendations is around four common moments.
First morning
Jet-lagged, hungry, low patience. They need coffee and something simple nearby — preferably walkable if that is realistic for your property.
Dinner tonight
Especially on arrival day. Offer a small set across effort levels: casual, mid-range, and one special-occasion option if you have one you trust. Note reservations where they matter.
Rainy day / bad weather
One indoor fallback beats five outdoor “gems” nobody can use that afternoon.
Late-night essentials
What is still reachable after 9pm: groceries, pharmacy, takeaway. This is the list tired guests need and tourist blogs skip.
If a pick does not serve at least one of these moments, ask whether it belongs in the local guide at all — or in a separate things-to-do list.
Category checklist (what to include)
Use this as a coverage check, not a quota to fill with weak entries.
| Category | What “good enough” looks like |
|---|---|
| Coffee / breakfast | 1–2 places you would actually go |
| Dinner | A few options at different effort/price levels |
| Quick bites / takeaway | At least one reliable option |
| Groceries | Nearest useful shop + what it is good for |
| Pharmacy / basics | Nearest option guests can find under stress |
| Getting around | Walkability, transit, parking reality, rideshare note |
| Outdoor / neighborhood | One walk, park, beach, or local loop tied to your door |
| Rainy-day | One indoor fallback |
Optional extras (only if you have a real pick): family-friendly, dietary-friendly, late checkout-day brunch. Skip empty categories rather than padding them.
Local recommendations are section 08 in the broader welcome book checklist. Finish arrival, Wi-Fi, and house-manual essentials before polishing the neighborhood list.
The 3-part recommendation entry template
Every pick should fit on a phone screen without a paragraph of marketing copy.
- Name — the place, clearly.
- Why — one sentence that only you would write.
- Practical detail — one thing that prevents a wasted trip: approximate walk/drive time from the property, reservation note, cash-only, best time, or what to skip.
Illustrative examples (not real venues)
Replace these with your real picks. They are format samples only.
Example A — coffee (illustrative)
Name: [Your weekday coffee stop]
Why: Reliable flat whites and enough seating that it works after a late arrival.
Practical detail: About a 6-minute walk from the front door; quieter before 8:30.
Example B — dinner (illustrative)
Name: [Your go-to casual dinner]
Why: The place you send friends when they want a proper meal without dressing up.
Practical detail: Walkable; weekends fill up — book if the stay includes Friday or Saturday night.
Example C — groceries (illustrative)
Name: [Nearest full grocery]
Why: Best all-round option for a normal shop, not just snacks.
Practical detail: Roughly a 5-minute drive; better produce than the corner shop by the property.
If you cannot write an honest “why,” delete the entry.
How many recommendations are enough?
There is no universal magic number that fits every market. A walkable city center and a remote cabin need different list lengths.
Use these working ranges as a starting point, then cut anything you would not defend:
- Coffee / breakfast: 1–2
- Dinner: about 2–4 across effort levels
- Groceries / pharmacy / transport: 1 clear primary each
- Outdoor + rainy-day: 1 each is enough to start
A short list guests finish is more useful than a long list they abandon. If you manage several properties in the same neighborhood, reuse the shared picks and only customize property-specific walking times and access notes.
Local guide vs things-to-do list
Keep them separate.
| Local guide | Things-to-do list | |
|---|---|---|
| Job | Everyday logistics and trusted nearby picks | Activities, tours, day trips, sightseeing |
| When guests open it | Morning coffee, dinner tonight, errands | Planning a free afternoon or full day out |
| Length | Short, defensive, property-relative | Can be longer |
| Risk if mixed | Essentials get buried under itinerary noise | — |
Guests ask different questions for each. One unsorted “Neighborhood” blob forces them to hunt.
Why curation beats a Google Maps / tourist-directory dump
Pasting twenty Google Maps links (or a TripAdvisor top-10) creates three problems:
- No taste. Guests came to you for a local filter, not another search results page.
- No practicality. Maps rarely answer “is this realistic from this door tonight?”
- No ownership. When a place closes or declines, a dump ages silently.
Airbnb’s guidance emphasizes personal recommendations from direct experience and keeping the guidebook updated — the opposite of an unowned directory paste. (Airbnb Resource Center)
Curation means fewer links, clearer reasons, and distances measured from your property — not from downtown tourism gravity.
Mistakes that make local tips useless
- The twenty-restaurant dump — volume mistaken for hospitality.
- Generic praise — “amazing food!” with no why.
- No distance or access note — guests cannot tell a 4-minute walk from a 25-minute drive.
- Stale entries — closed or renamed places can undermine trust in the whole guide.
- Essentials buried under attractions — dinner and groceries should not sit under a hiking essay.
- One list for every job — local guide and things-to-do smashed together.
- PDF-only tips that never get a second edit — venues change; a downloaded file does not.
- Recommending places you have never been — without direct experience, an honest one-line “why” is hard to write, and the tip is weaker for it.
Print, PDF, or a live local section
Be fair: each format can hold good writing. The difference is how you maintain the list when the neighborhood changes.
| Printed page | PDF / message attachment | Live local section | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy to read on day one | Yes, if it’s on the table | If they find the right file | Yes, on the phone they already hold |
| Useful before arrival | No | Yes, if you sent it | Yes |
| When a venue closes or changes | Correct only after a reprint | Correct only after you replace or resend the file | Can be corrected in one place — guests who reopen the same link see the update |
| Risk | Looks considered until it’s wrong | Old copies circulate in the thread | Still wrong until someone updates it |
A live section does not stay correct by itself. Its advantage is central updates: you edit once, and the current link or QR points at the revised list — instead of reprinting or chasing old files. When local information changes often (new favorites, seasonal closures, booking rules), that is usually easier to maintain than print or PDF. That is a maintenance argument, not a claim that any one tool magically raises reviews.
On TapStay, local recommendations live in the stay as Around You: your Host Picks first, then verified nearby places by category inside the guest portal. Guests can also open the same stay by link or QR without waiting on hardware; see NFC vs QR vs link if you are choosing access methods. (Plaque ordering is not part of writing good recommendations, and TapStay is not accepting plaque orders during the Early Pilot.)
Host Picks, verified nearby, and AI — keep the roles clear
Hosts get into trouble when these three jobs blur.
Host Picks
Your curated favorites for this property’s neighborhood. This is the trust layer. Write these with the 3-part template above.
Verified nearby
A backup layer of nearby places by category (restaurants, coffee, groceries, pharmacy, and similar), with practical details when available — useful when a guest wants more options than your shortlist, or a category you did not curate deeply.
AI Concierge
A guest-facing assistant for the stay. On TapStay, the AI Concierge answers from the stay information you saved. For local questions it can use verified place data rather than inventing restaurants. If a stay-specific policy or detail is missing, it should say so and route toward you — not invent a host rule.
What not to claim: that any AI “knows the city” better than you, replaces your judgment, or replaces your PMS / messaging workflow. TapStay sits in the guest-experience layer alongside those systems; it does not replace Airbnb, a PMS, or channel tools.
If you want the operational split of what to automate vs handle personally, use common Airbnb guest questions and the broader reduce guest messages guide — local tips are one input to that system, not the whole system.
Copy-paste local recommendations template
Copy this into a doc, Notion page, or your live guidebook. Delete unused lines. Replace brackets.
LOCAL GUIDE — [Property name] Distances are from the front door unless noted. COFFEE / BREAKFAST • [Name] — Why: [one sentence]. Practical: [walk/drive time + one tip]. • [Name] — Why: [one sentence]. Practical: [walk/drive time + one tip]. DINNER • Casual: [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. • Mid: [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. • Special occasion (optional): [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. QUICK BITES / TAKEAWAY • [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. GROCERIES • [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. PHARMACY / BASICS • [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. GETTING AROUND • From this property: [walkable / need a car / transit note]. • Parking: [one honest sentence]. • Rideshare / taxi: [optional local note]. OUTDOOR / NEIGHBORHOOD • [Name or walk] — Why: []. Practical: []. RAINY DAY • [Name] — Why: []. Practical: []. THINGS TO DO (separate from the local guide) • [Activity] — Why: []. Practical: [time needed / booking]. • [Activity] — Why: []. Practical: []. LAST REVIEWED: [Month Year]
Review after guest feedback or at least a couple of times a year — and immediately when you learn a place closed. Airbnb likewise recommends reviewing guidebook suggestions over time so information stays accurate.
Frequently asked questions
Keep your picks where guests can reopen them
The writing method above works in a note, a welcome-book section, or a live stay page. The hard part is keeping the list true after the first draft.
If you want those Host Picks inside a stay guests reopen on their phone — with verified nearby categories and an AI Concierge that stays inside your facts — you can put them in a TapStay guest portal / digital guidebook. TapStay is currently available free during the Early Pilot — see current pricing and pilot details.
TapStay does not replace your PMS, channel manager, or Airbnb inbox. It is a guest-experience layer for stay information.
More guides: TapStay Guides · Resources · Vacation rental guest experience
