OK we’re new to VRBO (Abritel in France) and to start off on this new platform we decided to use the request to book feature in order to better vet our guests.
… or so we thought.
So we get our first booking request which includes - name, dates, number of guests. 
To some extent I couldn’t care less about that information in a booking request. The single most important thing I expected to have is information about the nature of the guest’s stay. A potential message exchange to make sure that everyone is in the picture and to make sure the guests can expect a pleasant stay with us.
Nothing.
Now, we did find out that if I’d make a change to the requested travel details (price/dates) and send this change back to the guest, they now have the chance to chat with us. ONLY because of that, we saw that the guests DID send us the required information about their travel plans BUT VRBO did not show us that information. 
I find this very useless and misleading towards guests who believe that they have done everything on their end to make sure a host would accept their request while the hosts are expecting a message from the guest that never is shown (unless you make changes to the reservation - but who does that all the time?).
Since we’re new on VRBO - did I overlook something and was this information accessible for me when the initial booking request was made? In their app I was clicking all over the place and couldn’t find any chat option or attached message from the guest that could have revealed this message.