Work and business
A second phone number for short-let and Airbnb hosts
Guests need to reach you from check-in to check-out, often from another country. A host line on your own phone gives them a local number to call and text, with hours, voicemail and forwarding built in.
Hosting means being reachable by strangers for the duration of every stay, plus the days before and after. Guests arrive from other countries and time zones with questions about keys, Wi-Fi and the boiler, and they expect a phone number that works. The platform's messaging covers some of it; a phone number covers the rest. It should be a number built for the job.
Why a local host line
If your property is in one country and your guests come from others, a local number in the property's country is what they expect to see, and calling it from their own phone is straightforward. If you live in a different country from the property, the same logic applies in reverse: guests call a local number and it rings on your phone wherever you are, because the calls travel over the internet.
Name the number after the property and put it in the listing, the welcome message and the house manual. Your personal number does not need to appear anywhere.
Texts for the small things
Most guest questions are quick and are better as texts: the Wi-Fi password, "where is the recycling", "we are running late". With a host number that supports SMS, those messages arrive under the property's number on the Messages tab, with photos going both ways as MMS when a guest wants to show you the thing that is not working. See Start a conversation and send a message.
Hours for the rest
A guest who cannot work the television at midnight does not need to wake you. Set business hours on the host line, with a voicemail greeting that names the emergency contact and promises a reply first thing. Genuine emergencies can go to a co-host or a local contact through call forwarding, switched on for the night or for a trip and off again afterwards. See Set up voicemail and business hours.
Changeover days
Cleaners, key-holders and co-hosts need the guest to reach them, not you, on the day. Forward the host line to whoever is on site and switch it back in the evening; guests keep using the number in the welcome book.
Several properties, one phone
Each property can have its own number, up to ten on one Second Phone account, each with its own name, hours and history. The number switcher at the top of the Messages and Recents tabs shows which property a conversation belongs to, and Expenses shows what each line costs.
Frequently asked questions
Do guests pay international rates to call me?
They pay their own carrier's rate to call a local number in the property's country, which is usually the cheapest kind of call they can make. Where the number rings, and where you are, makes no difference to them.
Can I keep the host number when I stop hosting for the season?
Yes. Deactivate it between seasons so it stops ringing, and reactivate it when bookings resume. If you prefer to let it lapse, extra numbers are bought for a week, a month, three months or a year, so a short-term host line is also an option.
Will the platform let me share a phone number?
Platform policies on sharing contact details vary and change; check yours. Many hosts put the number in the welcome message sent after booking and in the house manual rather than in the public listing.