When people try to automate guest questions, they often picture a big hotel front desk. Yet a small hotel, a guesthouse or a single holiday let often gains the most. Questions about check-in, parking or dogs reach the owner in the evening, while cleaning or during breakfast. An assistant can take over some of them, provided it answers only from text the host has written and approved. The rest still belongs to a person.
This guide settles three things: which questions go to the assistant, what never goes into public knowledge, and where the assistant says it does not know and offers contact with the host. The examples use a fictional six-room guesthouse called The Fir Tree.
Which questions the assistant can answer
A good question for the assistant has one answer that is the same for every guest and does not depend on a booking. Check-in times, pet rules and directions from the station pass this test. "Do you have a room over the long weekend?" fails it: the answer changes by the hour and needs the property's calendar.
Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.
| Guest question | Does the assistant answer | Source or next step |
|---|---|---|
| What time can I check in? | Yes | Check-in and check-out times from the house rules |
| Is there parking, and do I need to book it? | Yes | Parking description, number of spaces only as general information |
| Is there Wi-Fi? | Yes, in general terms | That rooms have Wi-Fi; guests get the password on arrival |
| Can I bring my dog? | Yes | Pet rules and any fee listed in the price list |
| What is worth seeing nearby? | Yes | A short local guide written by the host |
| Do you have a room from Friday? | No | The host checks the calendar and replies |
| I want to move my arrival by a day | No | Handoff to the host once the guest agrees |
The source column matters more than the answer. If you cannot point to the paragraph the assistant should take the information from, the question is not ready to automate. A full map of questions by stage of the stay, with reply templates for the team, is covered in the guide on guest questions before arrival.
One house rules document instead of five sources
At a small property, information is often scattered across the website, the terms, an old guest PDF and the owner's head. An assistant reading all of them will sooner or later find two different check-out times. Keep one house rules document instead, maintained by one person and added to the knowledge as the main source, and delete old versions.
Arrival and departure: check-in and check-out times, what to do when arriving late (message the host). Parking: where, any fee, whether to register the car. Internet: "All rooms have Wi-Fi; we hand over login details at check-in." Pets: allowed or not, conditions, fee. Breakfast: times; allergies go to the host. Local area: directions, shop, trails. Date of last change at the top.
Write sentences a guest understands without context: "Check-in from 3 pm to 8 pm. Arrange a later arrival with the host." Avoid "usually" or "depending on the situation"; the assistant will pass them on as a promise. You can add a DOCX or PDF, or FAQ entries, to the knowledge in Meet AI. What else to include is covered in the guide on what data belongs in a chatbot knowledge base.
The hotel prompting guide from the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO, April 2026) recommends putting check-in and check-out times, cancellation terms and pet rules into the assistant's knowledge, and pointing guests to personal contact when no answer exists. It covers a custom GPT in ChatGPT for email enquiries, not a website widget, and says nothing about answer quality.
What never goes into public knowledge
A public assistant answers anyone who opens your website, not just booked guests, so treat its knowledge like a notice on your front door. Details meant only for guests on site go to them in person or in a direct message, never into shared knowledge.
- Codes for the front door, gate, key safe and driveway barrier.
- The Wi-Fi password, if only guests on the premises should have it.
- Names, phone numbers, email addresses and stay dates of specific guests.
- The owner's private number, unless it is the property's public number.
- Notes about specific bookings, complaints and exceptions.
- Internal arrangements on discounts outside the official price list.
Reread each document with this in mind before adding it. A key box code easily survives in the late-arrival paragraph copied from the version for booked guests. In the public version, write instead: "We send key collection instructions before your arrival."
Limits: availability, payments and booking changes
A knowledge-based assistant informs; it does not carry anything out. It cannot see the property's calendar, so it does not confirm free dates, take deposits or payments, or change and cancel bookings. A house rules sentence that sounds like a decision, such as "we are happy to extend your stay", may reach a guest as a promise. State plainly in the knowledge who handles these matters.
Availability: "The host checks free dates. Tell us which days you would like and how many of you are coming." Payments: "We do not take payments via chat. Payment details are included in your booking confirmation." Changes: "Please arrange any change or cancellation with the host."
These sentences tell the guest what to do next instead of ending with a refusal. Do not promise a reply time you cannot keep in high season. To make sure the assistant never passes as a person, set its greeting and name using the guide on AI chatbot disclosure.
When the assistant appears and who takes over
In Meet AI you choose a mode. In Hybrid mode, the "Ask the AI assistant" card shows in the widget only when the Availability module says nobody from your team is available. In Autonomous handling mode, guests can choose the assistant during the day too. A conversation with the AI starts only when the guest picks the card, and assistant messages carry an AI badge. Schedules and holidays for Hybrid mode are covered in the guide on an AI assistant after business hours.
When the knowledge holds no answer, the assistant says it has no information and offers to pass the question to the host. The handoff happens only after the guest agrees, and the guest can ask something else instead. What the host taking over should see is explained in the guide on chatbot-to-human handoff.
The European Commission states that people using a chatbot should be made aware they are interacting with a machine, and that the AI Act transparency rules apply in the EU from August 2026. The page does not specify what a guesthouse greeting must say. This article is not legal advice.
Private tests before you go live
Before a guest sees the assistant card, run a private test in the panel. Guests never see these tests, and the result cites the sources the assistant actually used, so you can see whether the check-in time comes from the current house rules or a forgotten file.
- Questions from the table.Ask every question marked yes and compare each answer with the house rules, sentence by sentence.
- Availability and payment questions.Ask about a free room and about paying by card in the chat. The right result points to the host.
- Questions about confidential details.Ask for the door code and the Wi-Fi password. The assistant should not find them in any source.
- A question outside the knowledge.Ask about something you never described, such as bike hire. The assistant should say it has no information, not guess.
Repeat the tests after every change to the house rules, for example before the season. Knowledge does not refresh by itself, so re-add the edited document or refresh the sources manually. More check questions are in the guide on testing a chatbot before launch.
Questions from hosts
Can the assistant quote room prices? It can cite the official price list if it is in the knowledge and current. It should not calculate the price of a specific stay or promise a discount, since that depends on dates and availability. Add a line to the price list saying the host confirms the final amount in the booking confirmation.
Is Hybrid or Autonomous handling better for a small guesthouse? If someone regularly replies from the panel or mobile app during the day, Hybrid leaves those chats to people and brings in the assistant when nobody is around. Autonomous handling suits a host who cannot write for most of the day. In both modes, the same house rules define what the assistant may answer.
