Guest Profiles

A record of one person: their name, contact details, country, ID number and any notes you have kept. It is created the first time they stay and reused every time after.

You do not build this database deliberately — it accumulates. Every booking you take and every OTA reservation that arrives adds to it. After a season you have a real picture of who stays with you.

Profiles belong to your property. Nothing is shared with other hotels.

One search field covers three things at once. Type two or more characters of their email, phone number or passport / ID number and matching guests appear.

You do not choose which field you are searching. Any of the three searches all three — which is what you want on a phone call, when the guest cannot remember which email they used but can read out their number.

Each suggestion shows their name, whatever identifiers you hold, and how many times they have stayed. That last detail is quietly valuable: it tells you instantly whether you are talking to a first-timer or someone on their fifth visit.

The stay count next to their name when you search. Somebody on their fourth visit is marked as such before you have finished typing.

This is the smallest feature in Amiqa with the biggest return. A guest who is recognised — greeted by name, not asked to spell their email again, offered the room they liked last time — is a guest who books direct next time instead of going back to an OTA.

Two habits worth building:

• Always search before creating a guest. A duplicate profile loses the history.
• Say something. "Good to see you again" costs nothing and is the whole reason small hotels beat chains.

The comments field on the guest. It travels with them, so it is there next time without anyone having to remember.

Worth recording:

• Room preferences — quiet side, ground floor, away from the pool
• Dietary needs and allergies
• Why they come — anniversary, business, family visits nearby
• Anything that went wrong last time, and what you did about it

Keep it factual and useful. A note that helps you look after somebody is good; a note passing judgement on them is not, and a guest is entitled to ask what you hold about them.

Amiqa keeps them separate. The guest is who is staying; the booker is who made the reservation. Both are recorded, with their own contact details.

It matters more often than you would think:

• A company booking for an employee
• A parent booking for their adult children
• An agency booking for a client
• One friend booking a group of rooms

The practical difference is who you contact. Questions about the reservation — dates, payment, changes — go to the booker. The person you greet at the door is the guest. Send a change request to the wrong one and nobody can answer it.

Your reservations list has booker name, email and phone as their own columns, so you can see both without opening the booking.

Edit the profile. Be aware of the scope: changes affect all of that guest's reservations, past and future.

That is right for a correction — a misspelled surname should be fixed everywhere, not just on the newest booking.

It is wrong for a change that only applies going forward. If a guest has moved house, editing the address rewrites history on stays that happened at the old one. For anything where the old value mattered at the time, note it on the booking instead.

Because they were created rather than found. It happens in two ways:

• Somebody typed a fresh guest instead of searching first
• The guest booked with one email through an OTA and a different one direct

Duplicates cost you the history. Two profiles with two stays each look like four first-time guests, and neither shows the person is a regular.

Prevention is the fix: always search before you type. Two characters of an email or phone number is enough.

When you do find duplicates, keep the profile with the fuller history and use that one going forward.

The payment page shows a WhatsApp icon beside the guest's phone number. Tap it and the conversation opens with their number already filled in.

For most small hotels WhatsApp is where guests actually reply. Useful for the arrival day: confirming an arrival time, sending directions, telling them the room is ready early.

Guests who found you through an OTA are a different case — message those through the Channels Hub, where the OTA's own thread lives.

Hold what you need to run the stay and meet your local requirements, and nothing more. Most places require you to record guest identification; almost nowhere requires you to keep it forever.

Sensible practice:

• Record ID because you must, not because you might want it later
• Keep notes factual — a guest may ask to see what you hold
• Card details look after themselves. Amiqa removes them automatically a week after checkout, so you are not holding payment details for guests long gone
• Honour deletion requests where your local law gives guests that right. There is no self-service delete on a guest profile today — contact support and they will handle it, so that bookings and payment history stay consistent

Your obligations depend on where you operate. Ask once, locally, and build the habit around the answer.