Send a clear confirmation, a pre-arrival email, a post-stay thank-you with a review request, and then a few useful offers a year to guests who opted in. Keep consent records, show total prices, and measure bookings from email.
Fewer, better emails beat a weekly discount.
The emails, stage by stage
Timed to the guest's stay, these emails do most of the work:
- Confirmation, at booking: dates, room, total price paid, cancellation terms, how to reach you, and how to change the booking.
- Pre-arrival, a few days before: check-in time, directions and parking, what is nearby, and optional extras such as early check-in or a room upgrade.
- During the stay, if useful: Wi-Fi, breakfast times and who to call, kept short.
- Post-stay, a day or two after: thanks, a review request to every guest, and an invitation to join your list if they have not.
- Seasonal, a few times a year: offers tied to reasons to visit, such as festivals, holidays and off-season breaks.
- Win-back, around the anniversary of a stay: a member rate to come back direct.
Consent first
Booking and pre-arrival emails are about the booking; offers are marketing, and marketing has rules. In the USA, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide requires accurate headers, a postal address and an opt-out honored within 10 business days. In Canada, CASL requires consent before a commercial electronic message, and the sender must be able to show it. Ask for marketing consent at booking and at check-in with a clear, unticked box, record when and where each guest agreed, and keep marketing out of confirmation emails for guests who did not.
Prices in email: the total price
An offer email that quotes a room rate is advertising a price. The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees covers short-term lodging and requires the total price, including mandatory fees, to be shown clearly and more prominently than other pricing. Quote the total in the email and land the guest on a booking page that shows the same total.
Review requests that follow the rules
Recent reviews matter to guests: in BrightLocal's 2026 survey, reported by PinMeTo, 74% of US adults look for reviews written in the last three months. Send the post-stay review request to every guest, not only those who seemed happy. The FTC's reviews rule bars rewarding reviews of a particular sentiment and suppressing negative ones; an unhappy guest's email is a chance to fix the problem, and they still get the request.
What makes a guest open and book
A subject line that says what is inside; one offer per email, with a date it ends; real photos of the property and the season; a single button to book, landing on the right dates and rate; and a member rate that only direct guests see. Personalize with what you know legitimately: the room they liked, the season they came, the reason for the trip if they told you.
How often to send
Booking emails go when they are needed. Marketing emails go a few times a year, timed to reasons to visit and to the guest's own pattern. A weekly discount teaches guests to wait for one and drives unsubscribes. Watch unsubscribes and complaints after each send and adjust.
How to measure hotel email marketing
Count direct bookings and room revenue from email, by campaign; repeat-guest bookings; extras sold from the pre-arrival email; review volume after the post-stay email; and unsubscribes and complaints. Opens are an unreliable signal now, because some mail apps load images automatically, so judge emails by bookings.
What we do and do not do
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. We plan, write and send hotel emails through our email marketing service, connected to your booking system, with consent records kept. We run no events. Our hospitality marketing page describes the work. This guide is general information, not legal advice. Our direct booking strategies guide covers the rest of the direct-booking plan.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.