An invitation links one guest and their stay dates to a guidebook. It gives the guest a unique, trackable link to your guide, and lets Touch Stay send your email and SMS messages at the right times.
ℹ️ This article covers the new Hub. If you're still on the legacy Hub, see How to create an invitation using the Message Hub.
Table of contents:
Before you start
If you want Touch Stay to send your messages, set up your message templates first in Messaging & Chat → Templates. See How to create message templates using Message Hub.
To send emails, the guest needs an email address. To send texts, they need a phone number. If you only want to share the link yourself, the guest's first name is enough.
Step 1: Open a new invitation
You can start from two places:
Go to Messaging & Chat → Invitations and click Invite guests.
Go to Guidebooks, open the guidebook, click Invite guests, then Invite. That guidebook is already selected for you.
The New Invitation window opens.
Step 2: Add the guest and stay details
Enter the guest's details, or click Choose existing to pick someone already in your contacts:
First name (required)
Last name
Phone number, if you want to send texts
E-mail, if you want to send emails
Choose the Guide / Property.
Under Arrival & departure, set the Check-in date and time and the Check-out date and time. Check that the times match the stay. The arrival date can't be in the past, and departure has to be after arrival.
If your account uses more than one language, choose the Language of guest.
If you've set up guest custom field codes, you can fill them in here. They're optional.
Step 3: Set access, booking source and tags
These settings are optional. Under Guide access, Booking source and Tags, click Show more:
Lead time: how long before arrival the guest can see topics set to Visible only during stay. No means from the arrival date, and Unlimited means straight away. The other options run from 1 day to 12 weeks. See The Lead Time explained.
Booking source: where the booking came from. It's set to Manual unless you change it.
Allow access after departure date: lets the guest keep opening the guide after they check out. It's off unless you turn it on.
Tags: add any tags you use to group your invitations.
Click Next. Your invitation is saved at this point.
Step 4: Schedule messages or copy the link
The Message Schedule window opens. From here:
Unique invitation link: this guest's personal link. Click the copy icon next to it to share it yourself, for example in your booking platform's messages.
Matching templates: any active message templates whose criteria match this invitation are already listed, ready to schedule. You can preview each one before it's sent.
One-off messages: click Add e-mail message or Add SMS message. Choose a template or Custom Message, then pick Immediate or Scheduled Time. A scheduled time can be set relative to the Arrival Date, the Departure Date or the Invitation Creation Date. Click Submit to add the message to the list.
When the list looks right, click Schedule messages. If there are no messages to schedule, the button says Finish instead.
⚠️ Important: if you close this window without clicking Schedule messages, the invitation is saved but its messages aren't scheduled.
💡 Tip: Only need the link? Leave the phone number and email empty in Step 2, then copy the Unique invitation link here and share it however you like.
Find, copy or edit an invitation later
Go to Messaging & Chat → Invitations. Click the three dots next to an invitation, then choose View/Edit to change it or Copy link to copy the guest's link again.
💡 Want to share your guide with everyone, without a personal link? Use the Quick share link instead. See How to preview and share your guidebook.
Create invitations automatically
You don't have to create every invitation by hand:
PMS integration: invitations are created from your reservations. See Does Touch Stay integrate with my property management system?
Airbnb: connect Airbnb to create invitations from your Airbnb bookings. See Airbnb Integration.
CSV upload: create many invitations at once from a spreadsheet. See How to Upload Reservations from CSV.
🤝 Need Help?
Our Fin AI assistant is available 24/7 and typically responds in under 10 seconds. If Fin isn't able to solve your issue, our support team will take ownership of your case from there.
You can also reach out to our team at [email protected], and we'll be happy to help.