Animal Crossing: New Horizons 3.0 update brought two big changes for players who love collecting villagers: new rules for villager hunting and a brand-new hotel with temporary tourist villagers. We’ll cover all the details about villagers hunting in ACNH 3.0 and questions about hotel tourists/guests moving in.

Changes to Villager Hunting in ACNH 3.0

Villager hunting has always been one of the most popular parts of ACNH, and most of the basic rules stay the same after the 3.0 update. However, the new hotel tourist feature adds a complicated step that many players miss. 

The Big New Rule: Hotel Tourists Block Hunting for That Day

After testing and asking many players, we can confirm this important change: if a villager is staying on your island as a hotel tourist, you cannot find them anywhere during your villager hunt that day. This includes both mystery islands and the campsite. This means that if any villager is a tourist at your hotel today, you will not find him/her on any mystery island—no matter how many Nook Mile Tickets you use, or how long you search. He is temporarily removed from the pool of villagers that can spawn for your hunt. The same rule applies to the campsite, you cannot invite the villager to the campsite using his amiibo card that day. A villager can’t be in two places at once!

While this might seem annoying, there’s a small benefit: if a tourist is a villager you don’t want, they won’t appear in your hunts either. This lowers the chance of wasting tickets on villagers you dislike. 

How Do Hotel Tourists Work in ACNH 3.0?

Hotel tourists are a new type of visitor added in the 3.0 update. They don’t just make your island busier—they have their own rules, rewards, and interactions. 

Hotel Rooms for Tourist Visiting

You won’t have the hotel right away. First, Tom Nook will ask you to help Leilani set it up. Leilani’s first task is to ask you to decorate the hotel’s guest rooms with specific themes—this works just like the interior design in the Happy Home Paradise DLC. When you finish decorating a room, Leilani will give you Hotel Tickets. After you finish the first hotel room and get your first guest, you can go to Resident Services to talk to Tom Nook and hold a small completion ceremony. Leilani and the first guest will give short speeches to celebrate! The hotel has two types of rooms: 8 standard guest rooms (on the upper level) and 1 VIP room (on the top floor, unlocked after finishing all 8 standard rooms). When you start helping the hotel, you can design up to 2 standard rooms per day. Leilani will ask you to design the first room with a “Seaside Room” theme. For every room after that, she’ll let you choose between two different themes. You get 200 Hotel Tickets for each standard room you finish. If you have the Happy Home Paradise DLC, you can use exclusive design features (like custom lights, partition walls, or changing the room size) as long as you’ve unlocked them in the DLC. After finishing all 8 standard rooms, you unlock the VIP Room. It has 45 different themes (15 from standard rooms + 30 new exclusive ones). You have to invite a tourist to stay in the VIP Room, and the room resets the next day when they check out. 

How Tourists Spawn and Behave?

Tourists follow specific rules for spawning and moving around your island:

• Tourists won’t appear until you’ve finished at least one standard room and moved to the next day (Day 2 of hotel renovation).

• Each day, tourists will spawn to fill the vacant, completed standard rooms. The first tourist (after your first room) is always a male “Lazy” personality villager.

• Tourists wear the outfits you set on the two mannequins in the hotel lobby. Leilani will tell you about these mannequins on your second day working at the hotel. If a friend visits your island in multiplayer, they can borrow these outfits too!

• Tourists’ nameplates say “Tourist” until they introduce themselves to you. If a tourist lived on your island before, their name will show up right away—and they will remember you! This is a cool new memory feature added in 3.0.

• Tourists can wander around your island just like your permanent villagers. If you can’t find a tourist in their hotel room, check common areas (like the plaza, beach, or near trees)—they might be exploring!

ACNH Hotel Tourist Rotation

Hotel tourists change every single day. If the villager you want is a tourist today, they will leave tomorrow, and you can hunt for them then. This is good news for most players, but it can be a problem if you time travel. If you time travel and the villager you want is still a tourist that day, you may have to hunt for a different villager temporarily (or wait another day). You can have up to 8 tourists at once (after finishing all 8 hotel rooms), so there’s only a small chance the villager you want is blocked. But it’s still important to check first.

What to Do Before You Start Hunting

Before you buy any Nook Mile Tickets or start campsite rolling, check your hotel. Go to the hotel lobby, walk up the stairs to the upper level, and check each room to see who is staying. You can also look for tourists wandering around your island (they wear the hotel’s custom outfits, so they’re easy to spot). If the villager you want is on this list, don’t waste tickets hunting for them that day—wait until tomorrow!

Extra Tourist Interactions

After you unlock the VIP Room, you might see tourists wandering your island who don’t have a hotel room (they’ll look deep in thought). Talk to them—they’ll say they need a place to stay. You can invite them to the hotel, and Leilani will give you two options:

• Put them in a standard room: Get 50 Hotel Tickets.

• Design a VIP Room for them: Get 300 Hotel Tickets (a better reward!).

You can also use amiibo to invite specific characters as VIP guests—but you can’t invite special characters like Tom Nook, Isabelle, or any special characters who are already visiting your island that day (like K.K. Slider).

Can ACNH Hotel Guests Move In and Stay on Your Island?

This is one of the most common questions players ask—and the answer is no. You cannot invite hotel tourists to become permanent residents of your island, no matter what you do.  Talking to them many times (even spamming chat) won’t change anything—you’ll just cycle through 8-10 different messages. Even if you have an empty villager slot (a vacant house), tourists will not offer to move in. They are temporary visitors only.

Tourists leave your island the next day, so they can’t become a permanent part of your village. Some players thought you might be able to invite them after 3 visits (like campsite guests), but testing and data mining have proven this is not true.

You can’t gift tourists items, receive gifts from them, or watch them interact with your permanent villagers (like having conversations or doing activities together). They don’t act like real residents!

If you want a tourist villager to move in, you have to use the regular methods: find them on a mystery island, invite them from the campsite, or use their amiibo card at the campsite. The hotel is just a place for them to visit—not to stay.

How to Do Villager Hunting in Animal Crossing 3.0?

Villager hunting still uses two main methods: the Mystery Island Method and the Campsite Rolling Method. Both work mostly the same as before, but you need to add one extra step (checking the hotel) and remember the new tourist rule. 

Important Pre-Requisite: Have an Empty Villager Slot

Before you start hunting (with either method), you must have an empty villager slot. This means you have 9 or fewer villagers on your island (the maximum is 10). To make an empty slot, you need to kick out a current villager. To kick out a villager, ignore them for at least 15 days (don’t talk to them, don’t gift them items, don’t interact with them at all). After some time, they will ask to move out.

Method 1: Mystery Island Method (Classic Hunting)

This is the most common method. It’s slow, but it’s simple—great for players who don’t want to time travel. Here’s how it works, with all 3.0 details:

Step 1: Prepare Nook Mile Tickets

Buy Nook Mile Tickets from the Nook Stop in Resident Services. Each ticket costs 2,000 Nook Miles. You’ll need many tickets (sometimes hundreds) for this method, so save up your miles!

Step 2: Check the Hotel First

Before you fly to any mystery islands, check your hotel guests (as we talked about earlier). If the villager you want is a tourist that day, stop—you won’t find them. Wait until tomorrow, when the tourists rotate.

Step 3: Fly to Mystery Islands

Go to the airport and talk to Orville. Choose “I want to fly!” and then “Visit a mystery island.” Use one Nook Mile Ticket to fly to a random island.

Step 4: Look for a Villager

If you have an empty slot, there will be one villager on the mystery island (unless it’s a special island with no villagers). Talk to them multiple times—they will eventually ask to move to your island. If it’s the villager you want, say yes! If not, fly back to your island and repeat with another ticket.

Probability Details

The game uses two steps to choose which villager spawns on a mystery island:

• First, it picks a species (there are 35 total species in ACNH). Each species has an equal chance (1 out of 35).

• Then, it picks one villager from that species.

This means: rare species (like octopus, which only has 3 villagers) give you a higher chance to find a specific villager. Common species (like cats, which have 23 villagers) give you a lower chance. For example, finding a specific octopus (like Marina) is easier than finding a specific cat (like Raymond) because there are fewer octopuses total.

Method 2: Campsite Rolling Method (Faster, More Controlled)

This method is slower than the Mystery Island Method if you don’t time travel, but it gives you more control over which villager you get. It’s better for players who want a specific villager and are willing to put in time (or time travel) to get them. Here’s the step-by-step guide, with probability details:

How the Campsite Spawn Works?

The game uses two steps to choose campsite visitors—different from the Mystery Island Method:

• First, it picks a personality (there are 8 total personalities: Lazy, Jock, Cranky, Smug, Normal, Peppy, Snooty, Uchi). Normally, each personality has a 1 out of 8 chance.

• Then, it picks a villager with that personality.

Two key facts make this method better for hunting:

• If a personality is not currently on your island, that personality has a 60% chance to spawn (instead of 1 out of 8). If two personalities are missing, the 60% is split equally between them (30% each).

• Once a villager of a certain personality spawns at your campsite, they won’t spawn again until all other villagers of that personality have spawned (some players think it’s all villagers, not just the same personality—but tests show it’s mostly the same personality).

Step-by-Step Campsite Rolling (With or Without Time Travel)

Prepare Your Island: Kick out all villagers with the same personality as the villager you want to hunt. This makes the 60% spawn chance apply to that personality, which makes your target much more likely to appear.

• Open the Game: Start ACNH and wait for Isabelle’s morning announcement.

• Check for a Campsite Visitor: If Isabelle says there’s a campsite visitor, go to the campsite (near Resident Services) and check who it is. Skip to Step 4.

• No Visitor? Time Travel: If there’s no campsite visitor, finish Isabelle’s announcement until you spawn in front of your house. Close the game without saving (this is important!). Time travel one day forward, open the game again, and go back to Step 3.

• Check the Visitor: If the visitor is not your target: Close the game without saving, time travel 6 days forward (this raises the chance of a campsite visitor to 20%, the maximum), and go back to Step 3. If the visitor is your target: Talk to them multiple times. They will ask to play a card game or do a small activity—keep playing until they offer to move to your island.

• Be Careful When They Want to Replace a Villager: If your island is full (10 villagers), the campsite visitor will say they can’t move in unless they replace one of your current villagers. Stop and think! If they want to replace a villager you want to keep: Close the game immediately (don’t save!) and go back to Step 5. Try again—they might pick a different villager to replace next time. If they want to replace the villager you want to kick out: Say yes! Congratulation—you’re almost done.

• Finalize the Move-In: Time travel two days forward in a row. This makes sure the new villager moves in properly and avoids glitches (like their house looking like the old villager’s house).

• Repeat: If you want another target villager, go back to Step 1 and repeat the process!