A clear floor plan does three jobs for a short-let host: it makes a listing easier to book, it helps guests find their way around, and it shows the fire-escape route a holiday let is expected to display. You do not need an architect for any of it. This guide shows how to draw a guest-ready floor plan for an Airbnb or holiday let on your iPhone or iPad, and turn the same plan into a listing image and a welcome pack page.
Why a short-let needs a floor plan
Guests scan a listing in seconds, and a simple plan answers the questions photos cannot: how the rooms connect, where the second bedroom is, whether the sofa bed is really separate, and how the sleeping arrangement adds up to the headline capacity. A plan sets expectations before booking, so you get fewer "where is the…" messages, fewer disappointed arrivals and better reviews. Beyond the listing, many short-let schemes and insurers expect a displayed escape plan - and because a RoomPlot plan is one editable drawing, the same file covers the listing image, the welcome-pack page and the safety notice.
Capture the space fast
You are documenting a property you already manage, so speed matters. On a Pro iPhone or iPad, scan each room with LiDAR and RoomPlot detects the walls, doors and windows automatically, merging room after room into one plan. No Pro device? Draw the walls by hand from a room-shape template and type your measured lengths - smart snapping keeps the corners square. Either way you have an accurate shell of the whole unit in minutes.
Make it guest-friendly
A guest plan is not a survey drawing - keep it warm and readable. RoomPlot gives you the pieces:
- Zone labels for every room, with the area calculated automatically and the text and background colour set to match your branding.
- A "You Are Here" callout so the welcome-pack copy points guests from the front door to their room at a glance.
- An escape route drawn with arrows from the Symbols set, plus smoke-alarm and extinguisher markers from the Fire Safety library, so the safety plan is on the same page.
- A clean export style - pick the Warm or Architectural template so the plan looks at home next to your listing photos.
Tip. Keep one master plan per property in RoomPlot. When you re-stage a room or add a sofa bed, update the plan once and re-export both the listing image and the welcome-pack page - they stay in sync.
Export for the listing and the welcome book
One plan, two outputs. Export a square or portrait PNG sized for the listing and the booking platform, then a single-page PDF for the printed welcome book on the kitchen counter. Both keep the room labels, the You Are Here marker and the escape route. For the safety side of the same drawing, see our guide to the fire escape plan, or browse the full set of RoomPlot guides and give your guests a plan they will actually use.
