An example scenario. The hotel, the number of rooms, the changes and the costs below are made up to show the order of the calculation. They are not a real client and do not show a result.
Imagine a hotel with twenty rooms, each with an information folder. It contains the breakfast times, Wi-Fi, the parking and pet rules, the reception phone number, the pool opening hours and a few recommendations nearby. At the start of the season everything is correct. In June breakfast moves by half an hour, parking becomes paid for outside cars, and the pool closes on Mondays. The folder knows nothing about this.
What one change in the folder costs
The first thing you see is the printing. But it is the smallest part. When one line has to change, someone has to correct the file, print new sheets, laminate them if the folders are laminated, go round all the rooms, take out the old sheet and put in the new one. If the rooms are occupied, the round may have to wait until the next cleaning. Until then, some guests read the old time.
So the cost has several parts:
- paper, ink and lamination;
- time to change the file;
- housekeeping or reception time to replace the sheets in every room;
- outdated sheets that stay in the rooms, and the questions they cause at reception;
- new printouts for rooms where the folder is damaged or missing.
None of these parts appears on the printer's invoice. That is why the folder looks cheap.
What changes with a digital handbook
The handbook keeps the same information in one place. The guest opens it in their phone's browser, usually from a QR code in the room, and does not install an app. When breakfast moves, you change it once and the guest sees the new version as soon as you publish it. No rounds of the rooms and no sheets to replace.
This is not free: the handbook has a subscription. Its price is on the pricing page and we do not repeat it here, because it depends on the plan. What matters is that a change does not require new printing and a round of the rooms.
Convenience for the guest
The phone is always with the guest, while the folder is in one place in the room. The information is on their phone in the lobby and on the terrace too.
There is also another side. Not every guest wants to scan a code. Some prefer paper, some have no internet in the room, and the phone battery runs out at the most inconvenient moment. So the setup is not necessarily “either/or”.
A setup that works
Leave one small paper card in the room that hardly ever changes: Wi-Fi, the reception phone number, check-out time and a QR code to the handbook. Everything that changes — breakfast, rules, opening hours, recommendations — lives in the handbook. That way the paper is not replaced with every change, and a guest without a phone still has the most important things.
How to work out the cost of your own folder
Do not look for other people's figures; add up your own for one season. A table of five lines is enough:
- how many rooms have a folder;
- how many times a year you change something in it;
- how much the printing and lamination of one room's set costs;
- how many minutes it takes to replace it in one room, and how much an hour of labour costs you;
- how many questions at reception come from outdated information.
Multiply, add up and compare with the price of the handbook for the same year. If there are two changes a year, the difference may be small. If something changes every month, the picture is different. The result is yours and depends on your property.
What the handbook does not do
It does not replace reception and does not answer questions in place of a person. It does not work without internet on the phone. It does not fix information that nobody maintains: if breakfast moves and the handbook is not changed, the guest still sees the old time. The difference is that the change takes a minute, not a round of the rooms.
Where it connects with the rest
The handbook is the place where the guest finds the information about their stay. If the hotel's website has ISKA Assistant, it answers questions from the property's approved information, but it does not replace the handbook in the room: the two complement each other. The decision about the paper and the handbook can be the first step towards less printing across the whole property.
A first step for this week
Take the folder from one room and underline everything that has changed in the last year. If more than half is underlined, you have your answer. Start with the handbook for those topics, and leave only the card on paper.