4 email templates to help build better guest relationships

Email remains one of the best and easiest ways to stay in contact with your guests before, during, and after their stay. It also gives you the ability to build a relationship with your guests even before they’ve checked in. What are the essentials a guest email should include in order to be useful, timely, and relevant? Below you’ll find the four most common email templates for hotels that you can adapt for your property right away. If you’d like to see more examples, download our comprehensive ebook with customizable email templates.

Moreover – and perhaps most importantly – email continues to be one of the most preferred communication channels for consumers: A global study from Twilio found that a whopping 83% of consumers prefer email when receiving communications from businesses. With the majority of hotels sending emails to guests, it continues to be an essential channel in hospitality. To learn more about using email as a guest marketing tool, check out our step-by-step guide to email marketing.

Firstly, what makes good guest communication?

It’s on-brand. First and foremost, the email must match your brand’s look and feel: the colors should match, the font should be familiar, and the imagery should align with your brand promise. Also, the content must be written in your brand voice. If you have a playful brand and the email is overly serious, it creates dissonance.

It’s useful. This pertains especially to pre-stay communications, which should provide value to the guest in the form of useful information about the upcoming stay. Other examples of useful information include where to park, what to do when you get there, or special events that guests may want to consider.

It’s relevant. In the Twilio study mentioned above, 56% of consumers hate communications that aren’t relevant. So make your emails relevant! If you’re adding upsell opportunities to your email templates, make sure that those offers align as closely as possible with what you know about the guest. 

It’s timely. Not only should you give guests useful, relevant information, but you must also do it at the right time! Usually, this is when it’s top-of-mind, such as a few days before arrival or the instant a booking is created. 

Let’s get to the 4 most common email templates for hospitality properties.

#1: Hotel booking confirmation email template

Objective: To provide instant booking confirmation with all relevant details for the guest’s records. Booking confirmation gives guests peace of mind and reduces the volume of concerned calls from guests who have not received a confirmation email. Remember that most guests are accustomed to the instant response of e-commerce, so manually sending out confirmation emails may not meet the expectations of today’s travelers.

Things to include: Reservation number/booking ID, room type, dates of stay, check-in/check-out times, cost breakdown, location and contact information, cancellation policy, and social media profiles

How often to update: You should update the booking confirmation email template every few weeks to include upcoming events, special limited-time offers, and other items of interest for your guests. By using this email communication strategically, you should be able to boost your incremental revenue opportunities.  

#2: Pre-arrival hotel email template

Objective: To get the guest excited about their upcoming stay while also providing important information to put their mind at ease. It’s so much easier for the guests to find a recent email than dig around for a booking confirmation. By sending out the pre-arrival email, you’ll resurface the relevant booking details and provide a useful resource for your guests’ upcoming stay.

Things to include: This email tends to be longer than the confirmation email. Include all of the relevant booking details (most of which will be repeated from the confirmation email), such as reservation number, room type, and length of stay. It’s not common to see a cost breakdown in these emails, but be sure to include functional details. You also want to include property information (such as check-in details, where to park, house rules, and upcoming events) and relevant upsells (like room upgrades, in-destination activities, and discounts for the cafe or spa). It’s also really common – and highly recommended –  to include a link to a local guide curated by your property.

How often to update: Similar to the booking confirmation, you’ll want to align updates with your property’s event calendar. And, as long as you’re using a third-party integration (see the last section for more details) to automatically match upsell offers with each guest’s profile, the template won’t need to be updated as often.

#3: Post-stay hotel email template 

Objective: The post-stay email should be focused on two things: Gathering direct feedback from guests and encouraging online reviews. By proactively asking for feedback, you can catch any potential issues before they become less-than-stellar reviews online. By requesting reviews, you’ll also keep up your review frequency – criteria used by most OTAs when determining how to rank your hotel in relevant searches. Don’t forget to reply to your online reviews too! 

Things to include: You want to include a way for guests to reach out directly to the general manager for any specific feedback. You’ll also want to include links to the most important review platforms for your hotel, such as TripAdvisor. 

How often to update: The post-stay email is very direct and transactional. So it will not need to be updated very often. You will want to revisit it at least quarterly to make sure that the URLs are working and that everything else still matches your brand’s communication style.

#4: Re-engagement hotel email template 

Objective: To nurture longer-term relationships with past guests. Re-engagement emails are especially effective when targeting guests within driving distance who may be considering a spontaneous trip.

Things to include: Content related to ongoing events and seasonal activities can entice potential guests to revisit your property. You should also include a call-to-action and any promotional offers made specifically for return guests. 

How often to update: Out of all of the templates, this one is the most dynamic. You want to create re-engagement templates for specific guest segments, which can be easily reused for future campaigns. We recommend updating this template for each re-engagement campaign so that you’re not sending identical emails each time. Also: test your email subject lines to determine which ones perform best!

Guest email example: Bode Hotel Nashville 

The email templates for hotels displayed above will give you the basis for your own property’s emails, but of course, they will need to be edited and modified to cater to your property and guests. You can be as creative or straightforward as you like! 

Below is an example of an effective, on-brand, and well-thought-out pre-arrival email from Bode Hotel in Nashville. It puts guests at ease by providing everything they need to know about their upcoming stay and also gives them a sense of the type of experience they’re in for. Providing this important information in advance reduces uncertainty and sets the tone for the upcoming stay. And, if there are any further questions, it makes it clear how best to get in touch.  

Even though they may be automated, these emails set the tone and highlight your property’s responsiveness. Take a look at the template below to see how it’s done. 

Tools to automate your guest communication

Automation is a hotelier’s best friend. It increases consistency, reduces errors, and eliminates tedious manual work, saving you a ton of time. Guest communications, like pre- and post-stay emails, are perfectly suited for automation. Rather than having to manually pull this information into an email for each guest prior to arrival, the automated workflow takes care of it seamlessly. 

Beyond the positive impact on the guest experience and time efficiency, automation can also power your incremental revenues by offering perfectly timed upsells and boost your hotel’s online reputation by capturing more guest reviews.  

At Cloudbeds, we built an email automation system that ties directly into our property management system to streamline communications across the guest journey. That way, you don’t have to flip between multiple systems, and your staff only has one system to learn. Email templates can be customized with the information that’s most important to your guests and then scheduled based on triggers, such as new bookings, check-ins, or reservation changes.

In addition to our own all-in-one automation tool, we integrate with other services (via the Cloudbeds marketplace) that empower your property with automated communications. Here are a few options:

• GuestJoy helps you manage your guest communication at all stages of their stay. The service also aids in gathering guest reviews and offering concierge services and targeted upsells. 
• Experience Hotel is a Guest Experience CRM that includes automated upsells, requests for feedback and reviews, and loyalty/rewards campaigns. It’s all driven by dynamic marketing communications based on each guest’s profile.  

Once you build out powerful hotel email templates and set your automation rules, you’ll enjoy a sustained and straightforward guest communications strategy. You’ll never have to manually send these types of emails again.

One final piece of advice: revisit your templates and automation periodically to be sure that everything is still functioning as it should. One indicator of a potential problem is if you notice a sudden dip in open rates or guests complain that they did not receive an email. 

Take the time to analyze results, improve your email templates, and optimize to turn the email channel into a source of incremental revenue for your property.