@dirk, On this same idea, there is a really great app called Relive that records routes and makes a 3D aerial map. You can even stop along the route and take pictures of where turns are needed. It’s pretty fancy. Perhaps you can share the recording with guests before they arrive. Check it out https://www.relive.cc/
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You can save canned messages so maybe one just for this. Apart from the arrival message send a separate one headed “Lots of road work diversions in my area so GPS is not reliable and here are the directions to arrive on time! Please take some time to read and save if necessary”. And send it when they book not just before they arrive.
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No it’s not @dirk
Airbnb provide you and the guest with a dedicated email address that you can use on the booking confirmation
No need to be faff around with verbally giving them your personal email address.
If the Airbnb site goes down how would the email work?
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@kkc nowadays people can buy unlocked phones so when i travel i buy a sim card with data plan from the country’s airport i travel too. thats very easy. this way i have google maps too.
to the op: in your case id go and pick them up personally
I don’t know - but I have never had a problem contacting guests via Airbnb messaging, so can’t imagine there would be a problem contacting them via the Airbnb email.
I’ve had more than one incident where the system was not available when I went to message the guest. Since I do same day bookings and don’t send check in instructions until the day of the stay most of the time this could be a problem. The system has always come back up in time but what if it didn’t? Or what if my internet went down? So I think it’s a good idea to have guests cell number and if I had a foreign guest and could get their actual email I’d be getting that as well. As an aside: I haven’t had a foreign guest in a long time…two years? It’s been awhile since we discussed the Trump effect. I wonder what the latest data says?
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I don’t take same day bookings and I use Airbnb’s automated system that sends guests check in details a couple of days before they arrive, so this has never been an issue for me.
Many of my guests are from abroad, so I wouldn’t leave it to the same day to send them self check in details as they are often travelling from one place to another.
I guess if the system was down in an emergency I would call Airbnb if I wanted to get hold of a guest’s phone number.
A personal email for a guest is something I have never required.
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Tell them to download offline map data and don’t accept the reservation request until they do. They can search “Black Forest, Germany” on Google Maps on their smart phone, tap the name of the city and download the map data. Then it will guide them to your house. The map data won’t show the alternate route immediately, but it Google Maps is pretty good.
For the foreigners, go to to Google instructions for offline data and change it to their language and send it to them. For example, I just hit translate this to French:
Étape 1: Téléchargez une carte
Remarque : vous pouvez enregistrer des cartes sur votre appareil ou sur une carte SD. Si vous modifiez la façon dont vous enregistrez les cartes, vous devrez la télécharger à nouveau.
- Sur votre téléphone ou votre tablette Android, ouvrez l’application Google Maps
.
- Assurez-vous que vous êtes connecté à Internet et connecté à Google Maps .
- Rechercher un lieu, comme San Francisco.
- En bas, appuyez sur le nom ou l’adresse du lieu
Télécharger
I agree, your English needs no improvement. You might want to add something you have already indicated to us: “After your first time driving here, it will all become easy.”
Thank you all for your help.
Just to let you know: first guest arrived today while road is closed. Everything went fine.
I called AirBnB support and they deactivated all filters for my account.
So I could mail a google-maps link, driving instructions including street names and my phone number.
Heureka!
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