A Kenova welcome guide is organised into four tabs along the bottom of the phone screen: Welcome, Stay, Explore and Help. Everything below is taken from a working guide — The Old Town Loft in Dubrovnik, which is the live example Kenova shows to every host. You can open it yourself and tap through while you read.
One thing worth saying before the detail. A welcome guide is not there to stand between a host and a guest. It takes the repetitive questions — the Wi-Fi, the parking, the bins, the door code at midnight — so the host's attention is free for the parts of a stay a guest actually remembers.
What is a digital welcome guide?
A digital welcome guide is a mobile web page holding everything a guest needs during a stay: arrival details, Wi-Fi, the house manual, local recommendations and who to contact for help. It is also called a digital guidebook, a house manual or a welcome book. A Kenova welcome guide opens from a link or a QR code in whatever browser is already on the guest's phone — there is no app to download, no account to create and no password to remember.
What does a guest see first?
Welcome tab
The first thing a guest sees is a section called The First Five Minutes, and it contains exactly three things: the Wi-Fi network, the Wi-Fi password and the door code. Each one has a tap-to-copy button. That is a deliberate choice — a guest standing in a lane at 11pm with a suitcase does not want to scroll, and does not want to type a password wrong three times.
Above it sits the welcome itself: the property name, a line from the host, and who is hosting — "Hosted by Ana · Dubrovnik". Underneath, a block called Find Your Way gives four routes into the rest of the guide:
- House manual — AC, kitchen, checkout
- Eat, see & do — curated by a local
- Getting around — from the airport and port
- Help & safety — host and emergency contacts
Then a Book Before You Arrive section, where a host can put things worth reserving ahead — in the Dubrovnik example, a self-guided walking tour of the Old Town.
Where do the house instructions live?
Stay tab
The Stay tab is the house manual, and it is arranged in the order a guest needs it — arrival, then the stay, then departure. It answers the questions that otherwise arrive as messages.
On arrival — getting in
The full address with a directions link, the door code, the Wi-Fi password again (because a guest looking for it should never have to remember which tab it was on), and the nearest parking garage with a "find garage" link that opens in Maps. Parking is the single most common pre-arrival question in most cities, and it is answered here without anyone having to ask.
In the apartment — how everything works
The specifics that are obvious to a host and invisible to a guest. From the Dubrovnik guide: "Air conditioning — white remote · MODE then ▲. Give it 10 min." "Hot water — always on, no switch needed." "Bins & recycling — green door, end of the lane, before 8am." That level of detail is the difference between a guide that gets used and one that gets closed.
Before you go — checking out
Late checkout policy and what to do with the keys. Short, and it prevents the checkout-morning message.
What's included — amenities
A grouped list so a guest can check rather than ask: bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and laundry, entertainment, outdoor, climate and safety. Whether there is an iron, whether there are wine glasses, whether there is a first aid kit.
How do the local recommendations work?
Explore tab
The Explore tab is a short, curated set of places — not a directory. It is headed "Curated by a local" and split into Eat, See and Do. Each entry carries the name, a couple of sentences in a real voice, and the two facts a guest needs to decide: how far away it is and what kind of place it is.
From the Dubrovnik guide, the Eat entries read like this: "Moby Dick — family-run since 1985, tucked on Prijeko. Fresh Adriatic seafood — get the black risotto or the grilled octopus. 4 min walk · seafood." And: "D'Vino — sixty-plus wines by the glass down a narrow Old Town lane. Tell them what you like and let them pour. 5 min walk · wine bar."
The restraint is the point. A guest given forty options picks none of them; a guest given three that a host would actually send a friend to goes to one that evening. The host chooses what leads, and Kenova fills the rest.
What happens when a guest needs help?
Help tab
The Help tab holds two things: how to get around, and who to call. Getting around covers the routes into the property — the airport shuttle and what it costs, a private transfer option, the cruise port connection, and roughly what a taxi to the door runs to.
Help & emergency starts with a direct WhatsApp link to the host, with an honest note about response time ("replies within the hour, usually"), then the emergency numbers. For a Croatian property that is 112 for all emergencies, plus police, fire, ambulance, sea rescue, road assistance and the nearest pharmacy. A guest in trouble should not be searching for a number in a second language.
Does a welcome guide handle Croatian eVisitor registration?
No — and be wary of anything that says it does. eVisitor is Croatia's official state system, the legal obligation sits with the host, and the registration has to happen there. What a Kenova guide does for Croatian properties is collect complete, legible guest details before arrival, so the registration itself takes a couple of minutes instead of an evening of chasing blurry passport photos on WhatsApp. Croatian hosts have 24 hours from arrival to register every overnight guest, and fines run from €132 to €2,654 per violation — the full detail is in our eVisitor guide for hosts.
What languages does a welcome guide come in?
A Kenova welcome guide is available in English plus 15 other languages: Croatian, German, Italian, Slovenian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The host writes their guide once. A guest arriving from Seoul or Milan reads it in their own language, and the host never writes anything twice.
How does a guest actually open the guide?
Two ways, and hosts generally use both. The link goes into the pre-arrival message, so the guide is in the guest's thread before they travel. The QR code goes on a printed card or a small vinyl sticker inside the property — on the fridge, by the door, wherever a guest will look when they have a question. Both open the same guide. Neither requires the guest to install anything.
What does the host have to write?
Less than most hosts expect. Kenova drafts the guide from the host's existing Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com listing, so the first version already has the property, the amenities and the basics in place. The host corrects what's wrong and adds what a listing never contains — the trick with the AC remote, the bin day, the three places they'd send a friend. The finished guide is ready in under 24 hours.
The four tabs at a glance
| Tab | What it answers | Sections |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | "I'm at the door — how do I get in?" | The First Five Minutes (Wi-Fi network, Wi-Fi password, door code, tap-to-copy) · Find Your Way · Book Before You Arrive |
| Stay | "How does this thing work?" | On arrival — getting in · In the apartment — how everything works · Before you go — checking out · What's included — amenities |
| Explore | "Where should we eat tonight?" | Curated Eat / See / Do, each with distance and category |
| Help | "Something's wrong — who do I call?" | Getting around (airport, port, taxi, transfer) · Help & emergency (host WhatsApp, emergency numbers, pharmacy) |
What a welcome guide is not. It is not there to answer for the host, and it is not a substitute for hospitality. The best hosts we work with still message their guests, still recommend a place they loved last week, still meet people at the door when they can. The guide simply means none of that time gets spent on the Wi-Fi password for the ninth time this month.
See one for yourself
The Old Town Loft guide described on this page is live and interactive — the same guide a real guest in Dubrovnik opens on their phone. Tap through the four tabs and see whether it reads like something you'd be happy sending your own guests.
Kenova builds the guide for you from your existing listing, ready in under 24 hours. See pricing · More guides for hosts