WhatsApp Business for hotels: how to turn enquiries into direct bookings

• The WhatsApp Business app is separate from WhatsApp, free to download on Android and iPhone, and built with small businesses in mind.
• Use the hotel's own number, ideally the desk's, not a member of staff's. WhatsApp says one number can't be used in WhatsApp and in WhatsApp Business at the same time.
• If the desk's number already runs on ordinary WhatsApp, you can move it to WhatsApp Business with its chats: back up first, install WhatsApp Business, and it finds the number for you. WhatsApp says the chat history can't be moved back afterwards.
• WhatsApp's help says a main phone can link up to four other devices, such as the desk's computer, and that you open WhatsApp on the main phone at least every 14 days to keep them linked.

Meta also sells a paid Meta Verified badge, ads that open a WhatsApp chat, and paid marketing messages. This guide uses none of them.

A guest can see your profile before they write. WhatsApp's help lists what it holds:

• Business name: as on your sign.
• Category, address and the pin on the map.
• Business hours: for a hotel, always open, with the desk's own hours in the description if they differ.
• Description: what you are, where, and who you suit.
• Email address and your own website.

Fill in every part. WhatsApp's help says the app makes some ready-made quick replies from your profile, such as your hours and address, and that a fuller profile gives you more of them.

Quick replies are saved messages you send with a shortcut, and WhatsApp's help says you can save up to 50. Its steps:

1. 1Open the “Tools” tab and tap “Quick replies”.
2. 2Add a new one, write the message and give it a shortcut, such as /price.
3. 3Save it.
4. 4In a chat, type / to see your quick replies, choose one, change anything for this guest, and send.

• /rooms: each kind of room in a line, with a link to its photos on your website.
• /price: today's price for the dates asked, or how to see it on your own website.
• /directions: the map link, the nearest station and airport, and the time from each.
• /checkin: check-in and checkout times, and early check-in on request.
• /book: how to book, the ways to pay, and what to bring, such as photo ID.
• /cancel: your cancellation terms, in the same words as your website.
• /wedding: who to speak to about weddings and events, and their number.

Write them in English and in Hindi or your region's language. A quick reply is a starting point: put in the guest's name and dates each time, so that no one feels they had a form letter.

WhatsApp's help says a greeting message goes automatically when someone writes to you for the first time, or after 14 days with no messages between you. An away message answers when no one can, on a schedule you choose: always, at times you set, or outside the business hours on your profile. Both are under the “Tools” tab, where you turn each on, write it and choose who receives it.

WhatsApp says away messages are sent only while the phone is connected to the internet. Keep the promise each message makes: if the greeting says within the hour, answer within the hour. WhatsApp's help also says greeting messages are turned off while its AI agent, Meta Business Agent, is connected.

The catalogue shows what you sell inside WhatsApp, and you can send one item into a chat. For a hotel, make an item for each kind of room and each package. WhatsApp's steps:

1. 1Open the “Tools” tab and tap “Catalog”.
2. 2Tap “Add new item” and add photos or videos, up to 10 for each item.
3. 3Enter the name, such as Deluxe room with balcony, and the other details the app asks for. A price, a description, a link to its page on your website and an item code are optional.
4. 4Save it. WhatsApp reviews each item before customers can see it.

If your prices change by date, leave the price off or write the lowest one as from: a price in a catalogue that no longer holds is one a guest will ask you to keep. Send the item into a chat when a guest asks about that room.

Labels sort your chats. WhatsApp's help says you can make up to 20, and that newer versions of the app are replacing labels with lists; on an iPhone they are under “Tools”, then “Lists”. A set for a hotel:

• New enquiry: a guest asked, and no one has replied yet.
• Quoted: a price was sent, and the guest hasn't booked.
• Booked: the booking is confirmed.
• Arriving this week: send directions the day before.
• Wedding or group: for the person who looks after them.
• Past guest: said yes to hearing from you again.

Each morning, open the Quoted chats and follow up once on any older than a day. Each month, count the chats under each label: that is how many enquiries came, and how many booked.

The app makes a short link and a QR code for your business. WhatsApp's help says you find them under the “Tools” tab, in “Short link”, where you can also write a message that is filled in for the guest, which they can change before sending. The QR code doesn't expire unless you reset it or delete the account.

• Google Business Profile, where Google offers chat: go to business.google.com, click “Edit profile”, then “Contact”, click the pencil next to “Chat”, choose WhatsApp from the “Chat” list, paste your link and click “Save”. If you add both WhatsApp and a text number, Google shows only the text option.
• Instagram: add the short link among your profile's links, and connect your WhatsApp Business number to your professional account.
• Your website: a WhatsApp button on every page, beside your phone number.
• Print: the QR code at the desk, in each room and on the bill, for guests who want to book their next stay.
• Booking confirmations and emails: your WhatsApp link beside your phone number.

Ask each new guest who writes where they found your number, and note it on the chat. Google's Performance report for your profile also counts the message conversations it started.

1. 1Reply within the hour in the desk's hours, with the guest's name, their dates and two rooms that fit, each with its price for those dates.
2. 2Give the reason to book with you directly: breakfast included, a later checkout, a better room when one is free.
3. 3Send the link to those dates on your own booking page, or take the booking in the chat if the guest prefers.
4. 4Take payment the way your booking engine or bank provides, such as a payment link or your UPI details. Never ask for a card number, a PIN or an OTP in a chat.
5. 5Send the confirmation in the chat and by email: dates, room, price, what is included, the cancellation terms, check-in time and how to reach you.
6. 6Label the chat Booked, and the day before arrival send directions and the check-in time.

A guest who writes on WhatsApp has chosen to ask you rather than book on a booking site. A slow or vague answer can send them back to one.

WhatsApp's Business Messaging Policy applies to every business on WhatsApp. The parts a hotel meets most:

• Write first only to people who have shared their number with you and agreed to receive messages. WhatsApp suggests asking separately for each kind of message, and says people should expect the messages they receive.
• Respect every request to block, stop or opt out, whether it comes on WhatsApp or anywhere else.
• People can block or report a business, and WhatsApp says its systems may then limit how many messages the business can send.
• Broadcast lists, for one message to many guests, reach only people who have saved your number in their contacts, and hold up to 256 contacts each. Replies come to you as private chats, and broadcast lists aren't available in WhatsApp on a computer or the web.
• WhatsApp's paid marketing messages, which it calls business broadcasts in some countries, are available only in some countries so far, and WhatsApp's guidance is to send them only to people who opted in.

Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, a guest's number is personal data too: ask before you add it to a list, and stop when they ask (see the guide to emailing past guests).

• Enquiries each week: the chats labelled New enquiry.
• Bookings from WhatsApp each month, and how many of the month's enquiries they were.
• How quickly you answer: open ten chats each week and check the time of the first reply.
• Where enquiries came from: Google, Instagram, your website, a past stay, a friend.
• Message conversations started from your Google profile, in its Performance report.

If enquiries come but few book, read ten of the chats that didn't. The reason is often in the chat itself: a slow reply, a missing price, a question left unanswered.