01
Nobody owns it.
The GM is running the building, sales is chasing groups, and the front desk is checking people in.
The hotel marketing book for owners, GMs, and sales teams
Hotel Email Marketing: Turn Your Guest List Into Your Most Profitable Booking Channel
Every guest who checks in hands you an email address. Most hotels never use it. This book shows you how to build a hotel email list, send campaigns guests open, and win back direct bookings from the OTAs, without a marketing department.
Written by Bruce Jordan, hospitality consultant to IHG, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham properties. Available in paperback, hardcover, and eBook.
PaperbackHardcovereBook
12
Chapters, one complete system
90
Day launch plan for any property
3
Automated sequences to set and forget
15–25%
OTA commission you stop paying
The problem
OTAs charge 15 to 25 percent to send you guests who already stayed with you.
Your past guests know your hotel. They have slept in your beds, eaten your breakfast, and parked in your lot. When they book again, they search a travel site, click the first result, and you pay a commission on a guest you earned a year ago.
Email marketing for hotels fixes the leak. A guest email list is the one marketing channel you own outright: no commission, no ad auction, no algorithm deciding who sees your message. A pre-arrival email sells the upgrade. A post-stay email earns the review. A seasonal campaign fills the shoulder week before you drop the rate.
Most hotels skip it for three reasons. Hotel Email Marketing removes all three.
02
The brand sends emails, so the property assumes it is covered.
Brand loyalty email promotes the brand. It does not fill your rooms on your soft nights.
03
It feels technical.
Platforms, automation, deliverability, segmentation, CAN-SPAM. The vocabulary alone keeps people out.
The solution
Hotel Email Marketing removes all three. It assigns the job, separates what the brand does from what the property must do, and walks through the setup in plain language a front office manager can follow.
What you'll learn inside
Twelve chapters. One complete hotel email marketing system.
Chapter 01
Why email beats every other hotel marketing channel
The real cost of OTA dependence and the math on direct bookings.
Chapter 02
Building your hotel guest email list
Capture at check-in, on the website, at events, and through Wi-Fi, with opt-in language that complies with CAN-SPAM and GDPR.
Chapter 03
Choosing an email platform for your property
What a hotel actually needs from Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Revinate, and hotel CRM tools, and what to ignore.
Chapter 04
Segmentation for hotels
Leisure, corporate, group, extended stay, and lapsed guests each get a different message.
Chapter 05
Pre-arrival emails
Upsell rooms, parking, late checkout, and F&B before the guest arrives.
Chapter 06
Post-stay emails
Review requests, loyalty nudges, and the rebooking offer timed to when guests actually plan.
Chapter 07
Hotel newsletters that get opened
Subject lines, send times, and content that is not a rate dump.
Chapter 08
Win-back campaigns
Bring back guests who have not stayed in 180 days.
Chapter 09
Seasonal and event campaigns
Fill shoulder dates around concerts, conferences, and holidays before you cut rate.
Chapter 10
Email automation for hotels
Set the sequences once and let them run.
Chapter 11
Measuring hotel email ROI
Open rates, click rates, revenue per email, and how to report it to ownership.
Chapter 12
The 90-day launch plan
A week-by-week rollout any property can execute with existing staff.
Bonus material: includes ready-to-use subject lines, campaign templates, and a hotel email marketing calendar you can copy into your own system.
Who this book is for
Written for the people who run hotels, not for marketing agencies.
Hotel owners and investors
Want more direct bookings and a lower cost of acquisition at every property in the portfolio.
General managers
Need a marketing plan they can hand to a front office manager and know it will get done.
Sales and revenue managers
Want a channel that fills soft dates without touching the rate.
Independent and boutique properties
Competing against brand loyalty programs with no marketing budget.
Franchise hotels
Under IHG, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, or Wyndham who need property-level email that works alongside the brand's program.
Hospitality students and new managers
Building a skill that gets noticed in a promotion conversation.
If you have ever looked at a slow Tuesday and wished you could reach 2,000 past guests in an afternoon, this is the book.
About the author
Bruce Jordan has run the hotels he writes about.
Bruce Jordan is a hospitality consultant, educator, and author based in Orlando, Florida. He has operated and advised branded properties across IHG, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham, including Hyatt Place, Hilton Garden Inn, and Homewood Suites, and consults on hotel revenue management, digital marketing, and asset management through Hotel Guest Management Inc. and Bruce Jordan Hospitality.
He is the author of the Hotel Revenue Bible series and Hotel Investing for Everyone, hosts The Hotel Podcast, and has been recognized by the International Hospitality Institute. He has spoken at AAHOACON and the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference.
Hotel Email Marketing is the system he builds for client hotels, written down so any property can run it.
Hospitality consultantAuthor, Hotel Revenue Bible seriesHost, The Hotel PodcastRecognized by the International Hospitality Institute
Bruce Jordan, author of Hotel Email MarketingGet the book
One book. Every direct booking it brings in is pure margin.
eBook (Kindle / PDF)
$__
Read today, search it while you set up campaigns
Paperback
$__
The copy you hand to your front office manager
Hardcover
$__
Owners, GMs, and the office bookshelf
Buying for a portfolio or a management company? Email for bulk pricing on 10 or more copies.
If the book does not give you a hotel email campaign you can send within 30 days, reply to your receipt and get a full refund.
Frequently asked questions
Your questions, answered.
What is hotel email marketing?
Hotel email marketing is the practice of collecting guest email addresses and sending targeted campaigns, such as pre-arrival upsells, post-stay review requests, newsletters, and seasonal offers, to drive direct bookings and repeat stays. Unlike OTA listings or paid ads, the hotel owns the channel and pays no commission on the bookings it generates.
How do I build a hotel email list?
Capture addresses at check-in, through a website sign-up form, on the guest Wi-Fi login, at events, and through group and corporate contacts. The book covers opt-in language, incentives that work (a direct-booking discount outperforms a generic newsletter promise), and how to segment the list from day one.
What is the best email marketing strategy for hotels?
Start with three automated sequences: pre-arrival, post-stay, and win-back. Add a monthly newsletter and seasonal campaigns tied to local demand. Segment by guest type so corporate travelers and leisure families do not get the same message. The book lays this out as a 90-day plan.
Does email marketing work for independent hotels?
Independent and boutique hotels often see the strongest results because they have no brand loyalty program competing for the guest's attention. A direct relationship with past guests is the independent hotel's biggest advantage over the OTAs.
My hotel is a franchise. Doesn't the brand handle email?
The brand sends loyalty and promotional email for the brand. It does not run property-specific campaigns for your slow weekends, your local events, or your corporate accounts. The book explains what you can and cannot send under brand standards and how to build a property program alongside it.
What are good hotel email open rates?
Hospitality campaigns commonly see open rates in the 20 to 30 percent range, with automated transactional emails like pre-arrival messages running considerably higher. The book shows how to benchmark your property and which metric actually matters: revenue per email sent.
Which email platform should a hotel use?
It depends on property size, PMS integration, and budget. The book compares general platforms against hotel-specific CRM tools and gives a checklist for choosing one without overbuying.
Is this book for hotel owners or hotel marketers?
Both. It is written so an owner or GM can set the strategy and a front office manager or sales coordinator can execute it, with no agency required.
Get started
Your next 100 direct bookings are already on your guest list.
Every night you wait, past guests are booking through someone else and you are paying for the privilege. Hotel Email Marketing gives you the list-building, campaign, and automation system to bring them back directly. Get the book, follow the 90-day plan, and send your first campaign this month.
Get a free chapter and a hotel email marketing checklist
Enter your email and we will send Chapter 2, “Building Your Hotel Guest Email List,” plus a one-page campaign checklist.