Guest registration: Guide for hotels 

What is guest registration?

Guest registration is the process of collecting and recording guest information for official purposes at a hotel or accommodation property. 

Typically, the reasons for guest registration are around legal compliance, safety policies, payment requirements, and communication purposes. 
Registering guests is a key part of running a hotel, both to keep operations running smoothly and to ensure that your guests are taken care of.

We’ll go into more detail in this complete guide to guest registration.

Why is it important to have a hotel guest registration form?

A hotel guest registration form helps create formal proof of a guest’s reservation and attendance at your property. 

Hotel guest registration is an important part of capturing all the required information that needs to be passed from the guest to your property.

This allows you to:

• Comply with local laws: Some countries, such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Czechia and Colombia, require guest information to be sent to local police or authorities by law, so that all visitors are accounted for and contactable. 
• Send guest information where and when you need: Some countries, like Spain, require the information to be sent to authorities both at the time of booking and at check-in. Digital forms and automated systems allow you to do that instantly.
• Maintain safety and security: In the event of an emergency, it’s important to know who exactly is at your hotel and how to account for them.
• Ensure you get paid: You need to be able to charge and invoice guests for expenses incurred at your property.
• Keep the guest relationship strong: With guest details, you can communicate with guests during and post-stay to enhance their experience and entice further spending or repeat bookings.

Just as importantly, a registration form will help ensure the guest has a positive, frictionless, check-in experience when they arrive at your hotel because they’ll know exactly what’s required of them.

What information is required for guest registration in a hotel?

While it can vary from hotel to hotel, and destination to destination, guest registration will always include some information about the reservation, the hotel, and the guest.

Some non-negotiable aspects include the guest’s identification and contact information.

Here’s a full list of what information may be shared or included during guest registration:

Property information

• Name
• Address
• Tax number
• Phone number
• E-mail
• Terms and conditions

Reservation information

• Arrival date
• Departure date
• Reservation number
• Room number/name
• Rate plan
• Room type
• Reservation total
• Deposit

Guest information

• First name
• Last name
• Address
• City
• State
• Zip / Postal code
• Country
• Nationality
• Telephone
• E-mail
• Arrival time
• Onward destination
• Passport / ID number
• Purpose of visit
• Vehicle registration
• Additional notes
• Guest signature
• GDPR consent

Some of this information will also be in the booking form, but the booking form will contain some different information such as optional extras and payment details, etc.

How to create seamless hotel guest registration

To ensure the hotel guest registration process is successful for both you and your guests, you should establish a set procedure to follow. There’s a few important steps and events that need to take place for an efficient guest registration procedure.

Pre-Arrival

Some of the registration can even take place at the booking stage. When the guest completes their reservation and has it confirmed, you already have a lot of the information you need. You can choose to offer pre-registration online so the guest can complete it prior to check-in, or prepare it in advance so that their check-in process is quick and easy.

Arrival

When the guest arrives at the hotel, they can either speak with front desk staff or check-in via a self-service kiosk. However, if the guest did not pre-register, they’ll need to fill in a guest registration form with all the crucial information we listed above.

Additionally, they’ll need to provide payment authorisation to your property, so that room charges or security deposits can be applied.

Once this is done, the guest is free to be assigned their room/keys and assisted with the beginning of their stay.

How technology can help streamline hotel guest registration

With Little Hotelier, you can make the guest registration process seamless. Our management system pre-fills crucial information from the booking journey so the guest doesn’t have to enter it again when they arrive at the property. All they have to do is verify the information, add any additional required details, and sign. You can save the form as a PDF or print it for your convenience.

Little Hotelier also has partners on its app store that can make the entire check-in process easier. ChekIn is one such example, which can automate guest check-in, enhance guest experience, and help with local compliance laws.

Finally, if you’re using an all-in-one solution such as Little Hotelier, you can be sure you’re offering a mobile-optimised booking experience, personalised and timely communication, and seamless customer service.

Hotel guest registration report with Little Hotelier

Small, independent hoteliers in a number of countries – Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic and Colombia, to name a few – are required by law to submit guest details to their local police or government authority.

Many hoteliers in these countries will collect guest details at check-in, then manually submit them to the relevant authority via an online portal. It can be a clunky process that can eat up the time of hotel staff and ultimately affect the guest experience.

But there is a better way: Automated Compliance Reporting with Little Hotelier.

Found within Little Hotelier’s Guest Engagement tool, Automated Compliance Reporting allows small, independent hoteliers to easily and instantly send relevant reports to local police or government authorities, all from a single, simple screen. 

It’s an automated system that captures all the information that the authorities need, wraps it up with a neat little bow, and sends it where it needs to go:

• Capture details from the get-go: Log relevant details prior to arrival, whether during the booking process or online check-in, so that you’ve got all the info you need before the guest even arrives.
• No more manual reporting: Little Hotelier not only collects all the necessary data – it can connect to the relevant police portal and automatically send guest info through for you, no human intervention required.
• Reduce guest wait times: Freed from tedious admin, you and your staff can focus on enhancing the guest experience, beginning with a swift and smooth check-in process. Digital check-in allows your guest to simply pick up their keys from the front desk when they arrive.

In countries like Spain, police reports are required at the time of booking as well as the time of check-in. Little Hotelier’s Automated Compliance Reporting can help here too: it can be configured to automatically send through the required details at both the moment of booking and when the guest checks in, to ensure all your bases are covered.

Little Hotelier is very easy to use and simple to understand and implement. I am genuinely impressed and now fully confident that everything is within easy reach and well-managed.

Saban Demirbasa,

Head of Hospitality and Branding

Stone Court House

Read more

Hotel guest registration form template

It’s important that every guest at your hotel is registered and accounted for.

Here’s an example of Little Hotelier’s digital guest check-in registration form in action.