The Paper Guest Folder, Reimagined for the Smartphone Era.

There’s a ritual in almost every German vacation rental. You arrive, drop your bags, and find a plastic folder on the hallway shelf. Inside: laminated pages with the WiFi password, house rules in 14-point Times New Roman, a hand-drawn map to the nearest bakery, and restaurant recommendations from three years ago — half of them closed by now.

This is the Gästemappe. And for the roughly 99,000 vacation rentals in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — Germany’s most popular holiday region — it’s still the standard way hosts communicate with their guests.

Strandmappe is here to change that.

How It Works

The concept is simple: hosts create a digital guest guide for their property, get a QR code, and place it in the apartment. Guests scan it with their phone and instantly have everything they need — WiFi credentials, check-in instructions, house rules, curated local tips, emergency contacts. No app to download, no account to create.

What makes it click for hosts is that the guide comes pre-loaded with curated regional content. Instead of spending hours typing up restaurant recommendations and beach descriptions, hosts select their region and get 30–50 handpicked points of interest ready to go. From signup to a finished guest guide takes less than 15 minutes.

And because mobile coverage along Germany’s Baltic coastline can be spotty at best, the entire guide works offline. Once loaded over the apartment’s WiFi, guests can browse tips and find the nearest pharmacy even while sitting on the beach with zero signal.

Built for Small Hosts, Not Hotel Chains

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s tourism market is dominated by small, independent hosts — 82% have fewer than ten beds, and most manage everything themselves. They don’t need enterprise software. They need something that saves them time, looks professional, and just works.

Strandmappe is designed for exactly this audience. The dashboard is entirely in German, deliberately simple, and requires no technical skills. Updates — a new restaurant recommendation, changed check-in times — are live the moment they’re saved. No reprinting, no laminating, no outdated pages in a plastic sleeve.

Pricing That Doesn’t Hurt

The free tier includes a fully functional guest guide for one property. For hosts who want custom branding or manage multiple apartments, the Pro plan starts at €9.90/month — less than a single overnight stay per year at typical vacation rental rates.

A dedicated agency tier serves property management companies who need to manage multiple units from one central dashboard.

A Regional Product with National Ambitions

Strandmappe launches with a tight focus on Rügen and the wider Baltic Sea region, with deep local content coverage from day one. The plan is to expand region by region across Germany’s major holiday destinations — Usedom, Fischland-Darß-Zingst, the Mecklenburg Lake District, and eventually beyond.

The bet is straightforward: generic tools that work everywhere but know nothing about your region will always lose to a product that feels like it was built specifically for the place your guests are visiting.

Check it out at strandmappe.de.