Guest communication plays a vital role in the experience your guests have with your hotel. Only communicating with guests when they are on-property is not enough. Hoteliers need to send relevant, timely emails at every stage of the guest journey to improve the guest experience and stay top-of-mind.

The guest journey

Inspiration and research

The initial stages of the guest journey are important for setting the stage for the trip. While you may not have the contact information of all prospective guests, use the data you have on past guests to engage them and remind them why they should book with you.

Segmentation can work its magic during the inspiration and research phases, so be proactive and target past guests during the same season they stayed with you last year. Inspire them to return using campaigns such as we miss you, birthday, seasonal, holiday, flash sale, and more. Include special offers such as a “book direct” promotion to incentivize recipients — a hotel credit, for example, is a simple and effective incentive to drive direct bookings.

Booking

At the booking stage, guests have reserved their stay and receive a transactional email that includes their booking confirmation or modification information. Transactional emails don’t have to be boring. Use them to generate excitement for the upcoming stay — include links to your restaurant, bar, or spa to drive reservations before guests even arrive.

Pre-arrival

Whether they are new guests, loyal return guests, or VIPs, leverage your PMS data to enhance the guest experience with personalized pre-arrival upsell emails. The purpose of a pre-arrival email is not only to prepare guests for their stay, but also to get them excited about it. A well-priced upsell offer — a room upgrade, early check-in, or dining package — is an effective way to drive incremental revenue before arrival.

Of all campaigns, pre-arrival emails see the highest engagement — and the revenue impact is real. According to Revinate’s 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report, pre-arrival emails generate an average of $95 per booking in upsell revenue in North America. If your guests purchase just a few upgrades per day, that adds up to meaningful incremental revenue over the course of a year — and you’re creating more value in the guest’s stay at the same time.

Automation makes this scalable. Pre-arrival upsell emails can be triggered automatically based on booking data, so every guest receives a timely, relevant offer without requiring manual effort from your team for each send.

On-property

You may think that when guests are on your property, your communication work is done. However, that’s a failing approach many hoteliers don’t realize is hurting the guest experience. On-property welcome emails are designed to provide guests with important details such as management contact information, services and amenities, and any need-to-know announcements.

Since on-property emails are sent the day of arrival, they set the tone of the stay. Include an exclusive hotel offer to keep guests on your property or promote events happening at your hotel, increasing your chances of generating ancillary revenue. To learn more about perfecting your on-property welcome emails, read our blog.

Post-stay

Even after guests have left your property, the communication should not stop. Send a post-stay campaign after guests check out to thank them and encourage them to return. If they booked with an OTA, include a direct winback offer to entice them to book direct for their next stay — a percentage discount on a return visit is a proven tactic.

Another smart strategy for post-stay emails is to include a survey encouraging guests to leave feedback about their stay. These campaigns consistently drive strong engagement and provide great opportunities to gather the feedback you need to understand what guests love and where you should make improvements to your service and amenities. Like pre-arrival campaigns, post-stay surveys and winback emails can be fully automated — triggered by checkout date without any manual lift from your team.

Developing an email plan

The first rule for developing an email plan is to be proactive. Think through your approach for different holidays, annual events in your area and on your property, and other demand generators. When planning a campaign calendar, consider three situations.

Peak season

Demand is the highest and availability is at its lowest. That means you can increase your rates. Marketing efforts don’t have to be spread across the board and discounts are unnecessary. Instead, turn your focus to your top spenders who are willing to pay top dollar for your rooms. Offer packages and upsells to easily grow ancillary revenue.

Low season

Demand is the lowest and vacancy is at its highest, so rates are naturally at their lowest. To counteract this drop in demand, focus your marketing efforts on painting a stress-free, quiet, and relaxing vacation for those within driving distance. Other methods to generate interest include steep discounts, flash sales, and irresistible incentives.

Shoulder season

Shoulder season occurs between the high and low periods. When demand, availability, and rates are consistent across the market, hoteliers need to hone in on their marketing efforts to drive interest. Use personalization options in email marketing during this time to ensure your guests feel special and understood. In addition to irresistible offers, include added value via relevant amenity upsells and room upgrades to drive bookings and ADR.

Why segmentation matters

Not all guests are the same, and your email program shouldn’t treat them as if they are. Segmentation — using guest data to send more targeted, relevant campaigns — is one of the highest-leverage improvements a hotel can make to its email strategy.

The data is clear on this. According to Revinate’s 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report, hotels sending to smaller, well-segmented audiences significantly outperform those sending to large, unsegmented lists. Globally, campaigns sent to under 5,000 contacts achieve a 42.78% open rate and 0.53% conversion rate — more than eight times the conversion rate of campaigns sent to lists of over 50,000 contacts (0.06%). The message is simple: quality beats quantity every time.

Segmentation also unlocks the full value of your PMS and CRM data. Filters like past stay history, booking channel, spend level, and guest type allow you to match the right offer to the right guest at the right moment — whether that’s a loyalty reward for a repeat visitor, a direct booking incentive for an OTA guest, or a room upgrade offer for a guest who has historically purchased upsells. Revinate Marketing makes this segmentation available directly from your guest database, without manual list-building.

The role of automation

A well-segmented email program is only as effective as your team’s ability to execute it consistently. That’s where automation comes in. Automated campaigns — triggered by guest behavior or booking data rather than manual sends — ensure that every guest receives timely communication at every stage of the journey, regardless of how busy your team is.

The most impactful automated campaigns in hospitality include booking confirmations, pre-arrival upsells, on-property welcome emails, post-stay surveys, OTA winback offers, cart abandonment recovery, and we miss you campaigns for lapsed guests. According to Revinate’s 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report, automated recurring campaigns consistently outperform one-time sends on engagement — cart abandonment campaigns, for example, achieve a 62.92% open rate and 6.86% conversion globally, with some regions converting at over 13%.

Automation also extends beyond email. Revinate data shows that 31% of guest messages are now resolved by AI-powered automation at a median response time of under two seconds — freeing your team to focus on the high-value interactions that require human judgment, like upselling, service recovery, and building guest relationships. Revinate Chat handles this layer of guest messaging automatically, so no inquiry goes unanswered.

The hotels that generate the most direct revenue from their guest communication programs are not necessarily the ones with the biggest databases or the most sophisticated campaigns. They are the ones that combine smart segmentation with consistent automation — reaching the right guests at the right moments, every time.

Frequently asked questions about hotel guest journey emails

What emails should hotels send to guests?

Hotels should send emails at every stage of the guest journey: inspiration and re-engagement campaigns to bring past guests back, booking confirmations to build excitement, pre-arrival upsell emails to drive incremental revenue, on-property welcome emails to set the tone of the stay, and post-stay campaigns to gather feedback and encourage a return visit. The most effective programs also include automated recurring campaigns such as cart abandonment recovery, OTA winback offers, and birthday campaigns.

When should a hotel send a pre-arrival email?

Most properties send pre-arrival emails between three and seven days before check-in, when guests are actively thinking about their upcoming trip and most receptive to upsell offers. The optimal timing varies by property type and offer — earlier sends work well for packages that require advance preparation, while last-minute upgrade offers can perform strongly in the 24–48 hours before arrival. Testing different send windows against your own booking data is the most reliable way to find what works for your guests.

How do hotel email campaigns drive direct revenue?

Hotel emails drive direct revenue through upsells, direct booking incentives, and repeat stay campaigns. Pre-arrival emails are the highest-revenue touchpoint — according to Revinate’s 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report, they generate an average of $95 per booking in upsell revenue in North America. Post-stay winback campaigns drive repeat direct bookings by offering an incentive to bypass OTAs on the next stay. Across the full journey, a well-executed email program compounds these touchpoints into a meaningful direct revenue channel.

What is the best email to send after a guest checks out?

Two post-stay emails earn their place consistently: a survey asking for feedback on the stay, and a winback offer encouraging the guest to book direct for their next visit. The survey serves double duty — it surfaces operational insights and, for satisfied guests, creates a natural path to a public review. The winback offer is especially valuable for guests who booked through an OTA, as it gives them a concrete reason to book direct next time. Both can be automated to trigger on checkout date.

How does segmentation improve hotel email marketing?

Segmentation improves performance by ensuring every email is relevant to the guest receiving it. Rather than sending the same message to your entire database, segmentation lets you target guests based on past stay history, booking channel, spend level, loyalty status, or travel type — matching the right offer to the right guest at the right moment. According to Revinate’s 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report, campaigns sent to highly targeted audiences of under 5,000 contacts convert at more than eight times the rate of large, unsegmented sends. The more relevant the email, the more likely the guest is to open, click, and book.

What hotel email campaigns can be automated?

Most guest journey emails can and should be automated. High-impact campaigns that run effectively on automation include booking confirmations, pre-arrival upsell offers, on-property welcome emails, post-stay surveys, OTA winback campaigns, cart abandonment recovery, birthday and anniversary campaigns, and we miss you re-engagement emails. Automation ensures these touchpoints reach every guest at the right time without requiring manual effort for each send — and according to Revinate benchmark data, automated recurring campaigns consistently outperform one-time sends on open rates, click-through, and conversion.

Learn more

For the latest data on email marketing benchmarks, campaign performance, and what top-performing hotels are doing to drive direct revenue, download the Revinate Hospitality Benchmark Report. For guides, strategies, and best practices across the full guest journey, explore the Revinate resource library.