Direct booking strategy
Email to Past Guests: How a Hotel Turns One Stay Into Direct Bookings
Email past guests whose addresses you collected yourself, with their agreement, and link to your own booking page. Each email must follow the CAN-SPAM Act: say it is an ad, include your postal address and honor opt-outs within 10 business days. Booking.com shares only alias addresses, and its terms bar unsolicited messages to them.
A guest who has stayed with you already knows your rooms, your location and your staff. Bringing them back costs a few emails, and if they book on your own website, there is no commission on the stay. This guide covers the part most hotels get wrong first, which addresses you may use, then the rules, then what to send. Legal points come from the FTC and the platforms' own terms. We are not lawyers, so check anything that matters with yours.
Why should a hotel email past guests?
Because the booking is cheap to win and you keep it. Take a 3-night stay at $160 a night, $480 before taxes. Through a booking site at 25%, the middle of what booking sites cost once add-ons are counted, the hotel pays $120 for that booking. The same guest booking direct from an email costs you your email software and some staff time. Ten such stays a year that come back direct instead of through a booking site keep about $1,200 more, before those costs. The example is illustrative, but the logic holds at any size.
It also keeps the relationship. When a guest books through Booking.com, you never see their own email address, only an anonymous alias for that reservation. A guest whose own address you hold, with their agreement, is one you can invite back directly.
Which guests can a hotel email?
This depends on how you got the address, not just whether you have it.
- Guests who booked direct. Your own booking engine collects their email. Ask in the booking form whether they want offers, and keep the answer.
- Guests who agree at the hotel. At check-in, on the wifi login page or on a registration card, ask for an email for offers, and record the consent.
- Guests who booked through Booking.com. Booking.com does not share guests' private email addresses. Hotels only see an anonymous alias ending in @guest.booking.com (Partner Hub page on contacting guests). Clause 2.9.3 of its General Delivery Terms adds that the hotel "shall not use the Messaging Service and/or Guest contact details provided by Booking.com to the Accommodation to send unsolicited electronic communications to any individual", and that the hotel indemnifies Booking.com against third-party claims and fines from unlawful or unauthorized use. So keep these aliases off your marketing list. The clause is about contact details provided by Booking.com. An address a guest gives you directly at the hotel, with their agreement to receive offers, is not one of those.
- Guests who booked through Expedia and other sites. Read your agreement before using any address they pass on.
State privacy laws, such as California's, add their own rules on personal data. Ask your lawyer which apply to your guests.
What does US law require in a hotel marketing email?
The CAN-SPAM Act covers all commercial email, not only bulk mail, and the FTC lists penalties of up to $53,088 for each email that breaks it (FTC's CAN-SPAM guide). The FTC sums up the main requirements:
- Accurate "From", "To" and "Reply-To" details, and a subject line that matches the content.
- A clear statement that the message is an ad.
- Your valid physical postal address, which can be a street address or a registered PO box.
- A clear way to opt out, which must keep working for at least 30 days after you send.
- Opt-outs honored within 10 business days, with no fee and nothing asked beyond an email address.
The FTC says you cannot contract away your responsibility. If an agency sends your emails, both your hotel and the sender can be held responsible. Ask whoever sends them how they handle opt-outs and your address.
Any price in an email must also follow the FTC's rule on fees, in force since May 12, 2025: show the total price, including mandatory fees such as resort fees (FTC). And if you offer past guests a lower rate than Booking.com, check your parity terms first. Our guide to rate parity for US hotels explains when a members-only rate is allowed.
How do you make sure the emails reach the inbox?
Gmail is the biggest hurdle. Since February 1, 2024, Google requires every sender to Gmail accounts to set up SPF or DKIM authentication for their sending domain and to keep the spam rate shown in Google's Postmaster Tools below 0.3%, and it advises staying below 0.10% (Google's email sender guidelines). Senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail must also set up DMARC and support one-click unsubscribe in marketing messages.
A small hotel rarely sends 5,000 a day, but the same habits help any list reach the inbox: send from your own domain, not a free address, set up all three records, and only email people who agreed to hear from you.
Which emails should a hotel send past guests?
Five emails cover most of the value. These are suggestions, so adjust them to your season and your guests:
- Thank you, a few days after checkout. Thank them and ask for a review. Keep the offer light or leave it out.
- Before your quiet season. Send a reason to come back for the dates you find hardest to fill, with a link to your own booking page.
- Close to the anniversary of their stay. Guests who came for a festival, a wedding season or a school break often travel at the same time each year.
- When something is new. A renovated room, a new restaurant or a local event gives a reason to write that is not just a discount.
- A year after their last stay. One clear invitation to guests who have not come back, then stop if they do not open it.
Keep each one short, with one link to your own booking page. Offers work best when they are something a booking site cannot copy, such as a room upgrade on arrival, and when your parity terms allow them.
How do you know which emails bring bookings?
Tag every link to your booking page with campaign parameters, so your analytics shows email as its own source. Then count bookings and revenue per email, not opens. Our guide to tracking which ad brought a booking explains how to set up the tags and why the booking engine needs cross-domain tracking first.
Email works best alongside the other ways to bring guests direct. Our guide to how independent hotels get more direct bookings puts them in order. To see what moving bookings away from booking sites is worth to your hotel, use the savings calculator.
MarginStay runs emails to past guests as one of its services, so we have a stake in this topic. Legal requirements come from the FTC's own guidance, platform rules from Booking.com's General Delivery Terms, and sender rules from Google, all read on October 2, 2026. This is not legal advice. The $480 example is illustrative.
Email to past guests: quick answers
Can a hotel email guests who booked through Booking.com?
Not with the contact details Booking.com provides. Booking.com does not share guests' own email addresses, only an anonymous alias ending in @guest.booking.com. Clause 2.9.3 of its General Delivery Terms says the hotel shall not use guest contact details provided by Booking.com to send unsolicited electronic communications. An address a guest gives you directly, agreeing to offers, is not one Booking.com provided.
What does CAN-SPAM require for hotel emails?
Accurate sender details, an honest subject line, a clear statement that the email is an ad, your physical postal address and a working way to opt out. Opt-outs must be honored within 10 business days. The FTC lists penalties of up to $53,088 for each email that breaks the law.
Do hotel emails need an unsubscribe link?
Marketing emails do. The CAN-SPAM Act requires a clear way to opt out that keeps working for at least 30 days after sending. Gmail also requires senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to support one-click unsubscribe in marketing messages, with a visible link in the body.
How often should a hotel email past guests?
There is no fixed rule. Five well-timed emails a year, such as a thank-you after checkout, one before the quiet season, one near the stay's anniversary, one when something is new and one after a year, cover most of the value without wearing out the list. Watch opt-outs and spam complaints.
Bring past guests back to book direct
Talk to us about emails that send past guests to your own booking page, or see first what your booking-site bookings cost in our calculator.