WhatsApp for hotels and homestays: direct enquiries, guest requests and the next stay

Leela Fernandes runs a 24-room hotel on a coffee estate outside Chikkamagaluru, with two front-desk shifts, five housekeeping staff, one maintenance hand and a kitchen that closes at ten (an invented example). Most guests drive up from Bengaluru for the weekend. Nearly all of them message first, and keep messaging until they leave. WhatsApp for hotels is mostly that: one conversation with each guest that starts as an enquiry, becomes a stay, and, if it goes well, becomes the next booking.

This playbook follows that conversation at a hotel or homestay. If you sell holidays as an agency, quotes and itineraries are covered in the travel agency playbook; this one starts when the guest is coming to your property. Words like “utility template” are defined in the glossary.

Where direct booking enquiries come from

Three places, and you want to know which one each enquiry came from.

The Google Business Profile chat button is often the biggest; our Google Business Profile guide covers setting the link and who answers at 9 pm. The website comes next. Put a chat link with a different pre-filled message on each room page (“Hi, I’m asking about the Estate View room”), as our guide to adding WhatsApp to your website shows, and the first message tells you the page. Instagram DMs come from reels of the mist on the estate; their 24-hour rule is in our Instagram DM guide.

Answer every one, hotel room or homestay booking, with the same three questions before quoting: dates, number of guests, and room type. Reply buttons work for the last one: Estate View, Garden Cottage, Family Suite. Meta allows three, each up to 20 characters. Then send one quote with the nightly rate, what it includes, the cancellation terms and how long you’ll hold the room. “Held till 6 pm today against an advance” is a promise the front desk must be able to keep.

These replies are service messages. Each number gets 1,000 free a month, then ₹0.1150 each to an Indian number, before GST, on Meta’s rate card effective 1 October 2026. If the guest came from a click-to-WhatsApp ad, a free window of up to 7 days may apply; the free window guide explains when.

The pre-arrival message, two days out

This is the message guests remember, because it answers what they were about to ask. It goes as a utility template, since it’s about their booking and sells nothing.

Hello {{1}}, we look forward to welcoming you at {{2}} on {{3}}. Your booking reference is {{4}}.

Please carry the photo ID our front desk will ask for at arrival. Tap below to share your arrival time, or reply here with any request for your stay.

Quick-reply buttons: Share arrival time, Send directions.

A tap opens the guest’s 24-hour window, so the directions go as an ordinary reply: a location pin, plus one line about the last stretch (“after the church, the estate road is 3 km of gravel; any car manages it in daylight”). Send it before they lose signal on the ghat, not when they call from the turning.

Keep add-ons out of the template. “Add a plantation walk for ₹600” turns an 11.5 paise message into an 86 paise one, because Meta bills a template with both utility and promotional content as marketing. If the guest asks what there is to do, sell the walk in the reply.

Guests who booked through an online travel site are a separate case. You have a booking, but the guest may not have agreed to hear from you on WhatsApp, and Meta requires an opt-in that names your business. Ask for it at the front desk, in one line, and record the date.

On arrival day: what goes in the chat and what stays at the desk

Send the useful things: breakfast hours, the Wi-Fi name, the kitchen’s last order time, the front-desk number to message at night.

Keep the room number out of the chat. Tell it to the guest at the desk. A message reading “Mr Pillai, Room 12” on a phone left on a café table is the one thing in this playbook that is a security matter, not a courtesy.

In-stay requests: one list, four queues

A guest’s request belongs to whoever can fix it, and in a 24-room property that is four different people. Send a list message when a guest writes in, so the request sorts itself:

Row	Goes to
Housekeeping	Housekeeping supervisor
Something isn’t working	Maintenance
Food and room service	Kitchen
Taxi or local trips	Front desk
Anything else	Front desk

Meta allows up to 10 rows across all sections, with titles of up to 24 characters. Five is plenty.

AP Arvind Pillai talking to Kaapi Kaadu Estate Stay

1. Arvind Pillai:
   hi, no hot water in room 12 7:02 am
2. Kaapi Kaadu Estate Stay:
   Sorry about that. What do you need help with? 7:02 am
   • Choose an option
3. Arvind Pillai:
   Something isn't working 7:03 am
4. Team: Maintenance · tagged Room 12 · assigned to the person on shift
5. Kaapi Kaadu Estate Stay:
   Our maintenance team is on the way to Room 12 now. The geyser takes about 15 minutes to heat once it is reset. 7:06 am
6. Kaapi Kaadu Estate Stay:
   Is the hot water working now? 7:30 am
   • Yes, thanks
   • Still not working

Three habits make this work. Tag the chat with the room number, so a housekeeping request at 7 pm and a towel request at 9 pm from the same room land together. Close every request with a question the guest answers with a tap. And decide who holds each queue after hours: when the kitchen closes at ten, its queue goes to the front desk, or the 10:40 pm request for warm milk sits unread until breakfast.

Housekeeping usually works from a shared tablet in the linen room rather than personal phones, which keeps guests’ numbers off staff handsets. Our piece on customers in staff phones explains why that matters when someone leaves.

Every message here is a service reply, because the guest wrote first.

Departure day

The morning message on the day of departure saves the front desk a queue at 11.

Good morning {{1}}, departure time from {{2}} is {{3}} today. Your bill will be ready at the front desk, and we can send a copy here.

Tap below if you need a later departure or a taxi.

Quick-reply buttons: Later departure, Book a taxi, Send my bill.

If the guest has messaged in the last 24 hours, which most have by now, this can go as an ordinary reply. If not, it’s a utility template. Either way it’s ₹0.1150. Send the bill as a PDF in reply to the tap. Leave the price of a later departure out of the template, and quote it when the guest asks.

The review request, tied to the stay

Meta’s categorization page, updated 15 September 2026, puts feedback surveys under utility only when they relate to a specific order or visit, and says “a general/generic survey or request for feedback will not be approved as utility”. So ask about this stay, by name and date, the day after departure:

Hello {{1}}, thank you for staying with us at {{2}} from {{3}} to {{4}}. How was your stay?

Quick-reply buttons: Loved it, It was fine, Something was wrong.

Then branch. Loved it gets a thank-you and the link to your Google review page, sent as an ordinary reply, because the tap opened the guest’s window. Our reading is that a template asking for a public review is closer to an endorsement request than to feedback, so we’d budget a template like that at the marketing rate; the reply route avoids the question. It was fine gets a thank-you and nothing more. Something was wrong goes straight to the owner or manager, who replies personally the same day.

Never offer a discount for a review. Google’s rules on that are in the Google Business Profile guide.

Repeat-guest offers, with permission

The family from last December is your cheapest booking this December. Reaching them is a marketing template at ₹0.8631 per delivered message, and it needs an opt-in that is separate from the booking. Ask once, at departure, in the same chat: “Can we send you our monsoon and year-end offers on WhatsApp? Two or three a year.” Record the answer and the date, as our opt-in guide describes.

Hello {{1}}, our year-end dates at {{2}} open for booking on {{3}}. Weekday stays are priced lower until {{4}}. Reply here and we'll check dates for your next visit.

Add Meta’s marketing opt-out button. Keep percentages and rupee amounts out of the variables: Meta’s template review rejects variables containing special characters such as #, $ or %.

Send these two or three times a year, around your seasons. WhatsApp may limit how many marketing messages one person receives from all businesses combined, based on how they’ve engaged recently, and a guest who never opens yours is the first to stop receiving them. The error 131049 guide explains what a held-back message looks like.

What a month costs

An illustrative 24-room property at 65% occupancy over 30 nights sells 468 room-nights. At two nights a stay, that’s 234 stays.

Messages	Category	Count	Cost before GST
Replies to 450 enquiries, about 8 each	Service	3,600
In-stay replies, about 6 a stay	Service	1,404
Departure replies, bills and review links, 2 a stay	Service	468
All service replies	Service	5,472, less 1,000 free	4,472 × ₹0.1150 = ₹514.28
Confirmation, pre-arrival, departure and feedback templates, 4 a stay	Utility	936	₹107.64
One seasonal offer to 900 opted-in past guests	Marketing	900	₹776.79

About ₹622 a month before GST in an ordinary month, and about ₹1,399 in a month with an offer, plus your provider’s plan.

Before the next weekend

• A different pre-filled message on the Google profile, each room page and the Instagram bio link
• Dates, guests and room type asked before any quote
• Pre-arrival template approved as utility, with no add-ons in it
• Opt-in asked at the desk for guests who booked through travel sites
• Room numbers given at the desk, never in the chat
• A list message routing requests to four queues, with after-hours owners
• Departure template approved; later-departure price quoted only on request
• Feedback template naming the stay; review link sent only after a Loved it tap
• Separate offer opt-in recorded, and no more than three offers a year

Start with the list message. It is the one change guests notice on their first night.