Last month your team sent a summer promotion to all 15,000 contacts in the database. Same subject line, same offer, same message for everyone, whether they're a business traveller or a loyal guest. Open rates came back around 12%, conversions barely registered, and the marketing team starts to think email just doesn't work for them.
It does, though. The problem isn't your copy or your offer. It's that every guest got the same message, and none of them felt like it was meant for them.
It's usually not a lack of marketing skill, it's that guest data is scattered everywhere. The PMS holds stay history, the booking engine holds channel data, and the email tool holds a list that was last imported months ago. When segmentation means manually cross-referencing three systems, it's no surprise most teams just select the entire database and press send.
So the guest who spent € 800 per night on a suite gets the same discount as someone who booked the cheapest room on Booking.com. Guests stop opening your emails, unsubscribe rates climb, and eventually the team stops investing in email altogether.
.jpg)
You don't need hundreds of micro-audiences. If your PMS records stay dates, room types, and booking channels, you have enough to build these five segments today.
Even a handful of well-constructed audience segments will outperform a single blast to your full database every time.
Who they are: Guests who have stayed two or more times with total spend in your top 20%.
What to send: Early access to seasonal offers, room upgrade invitations, or a personalised "welcome back" message before their next stay. These guests don't need another discount, they want to feel like you actually remember them. If you're looking for inspiration, these tactics for bringing returning guests back are a good starting point.
Who they are: Guests who booked once through Booking.com or Expedia and have not returned.
What to send: A post-stay sequence introducing your direct booking benefits: best-rate guarantee, room preference selection, early check-in. The point isn't to push a booking right away, it's to build a direct relationship in the post-stay window before the OTA recaptures them for their next trip.
Who they are: Guests with midweek stays, short booking windows, and single-occupancy bookings.
What to send: Practical, low-noise communication. Express check-in, workspace availability, transport links. These guests just want things to run smoothly, so keep it useful and skip the fluff. Getting the pre-arrival message right matters more here than anywhere, because a busy traveller who gets an irrelevant family upsell will disengage permanently.
Who they are: Guests who book during peak holiday periods, often with longer stays and multiple occupants.
What to send: Re-engagement timed eight to twelve weeks before the season they last visited. "Planning your summer on the coast again? Book early for your preferred room." Pair it with relevant on-property experiences: dining packages, family activities, spa offers. These guests respond well to omnichannel approaches that reach them across email and messaging channels.
Who they are: Guests who stayed twelve or more months ago and have not engaged with any communication since.
What to send: A re-engagement message that acknowledges the gap honestly. "It has been a while. Here is what is new." Highlight property renovations, new restaurant openings, or upcoming events. Keep it short. If they don't engage after two attempts, suppress them rather than continuing to damage your deliverability. It also helps to think about why guests stop coming back in the first place, so your message addresses the real reason, not just offers a blanket discount.
.jpg)
Industry benchmarks for hospitality email show segmented campaigns achieving open rates of 35 to 50%, compared to 12 to 18% for unsegmented sends. Click-through rates double or triple and conversion to booking can increase four to six times.
For a five-property group with a 20,000-contact database, the difference is dramatic. A generic campaign converting at 0.5% produces 100 bookings. A segmented approach converting at 2% produces 400. At € 240 average booking value, that is a € 72,000 difference per campaign cycle.
The most common objection is "our data is not clean enough to segment." Almost always, that’s an overstatement. If your PMS records stay dates, room types, and booking channels, you have enough for the five segments above. The best way to approach CRM segmentation is to start with what you have, not wait for perfect data.
If you wait for perfect data before you start segmenting, you'll still be sending the same generic newsletter three years from now. Start with what you have, even if it's messy, and focus on sending fewer campaigns that actually feel relevant to the guest reading them.
Want more content like this? Get hospitality strategies delivered to your inbox via More Than Bookings, our newsletter that cuts through the noise. Subscribe today!
Are you ready to increase your revenue and build lasting guest relationships? Take the first step today.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
