Push Notifications vs. Email: Which Works Better for Hotel Guest Communication?

If you manage guest communications at a hotel, there is a good chance you are making channel decisions based on email open rate data that is significantly inflated. Since Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection in 2021, email opens have been automatically recorded for many recipients — whether or not they actually open the message. The result: cross-industry average open rates sit around 42–43%, while travel and hospitality emails in reality achieve closer to 22% genuine engagement, the lowest open rate of any industry tracked by MailerLite's 2025 benchmarks. This matters because it changes the channel comparison entirely. Email is not the dominant channel most hotels treat it as — at least not for time-sensitive, in-stay communication. Push notifications via digital wallet passes, SMS, and WhatsApp each outperform email in reach, response rate, and immediacy, when used at the right moment in the guest journey. This post works through each major hotel communication channel, gives you the data, and ends with a practical framework for matching channel to journey stage — so your guest communications actually reach the guests you're trying to engage.

The Email Open Rate Problem Hotels Need to Understand

Email remains the most widely used channel in hotel guest communication. Booking confirmations, pre-arrival information, post-stay review requests — all are delivered almost universally by email. For many of these use cases, email is the right call: it handles longer-form content well, it is expected for formal transactional communication, and guests are generally receptive to pre-arrival emails when they are relevant and timely. The problem is not email itself. The problem is using email performance benchmarks to make decisions about in-stay and time-sensitive communication — and those benchmarks are currently misleading. **Why email metrics in hospitality are unreliable** Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, introduced in iOS 15 and now standard across Apple devices, loads email tracking pixels automatically — regardless of whether the recipient opens the message. This artificially inflates open rate figures for any hotel with a significant share of Apple device users, which in Europe typically means 40–60% of the guest base. The practical consequence: a hotel reporting a 38% email open rate may be seeing genuine engagement from as few as 15–20% of recipients. MailerLite's 2025 sector data, which strips out MPP-inflated figures, puts the travel and transportation sector open rate at 22.57% — the lowest of any measured industry. Hospitality email click-through rates average just 1.4%, also among the lowest tracked.

A Data-Backed Comparison of Hotel Guest Communication Channels

Rather than pitching push notifications against email in isolation, the more useful question is: what does each channel actually deliver, and where in the guest journey does it perform best? The table below summarises the five channels most relevant to European hotel operations:

• **Email** (22–45% open rate*): Best for pre-arrival, post-stay. Limited by inbox competition and inflated metrics. Requires opt-in. • **SMS / Text** (Up to 98% open rate): Best for urgent, time-sensitive alerts. Perceived as intrusive; per-message cost. Requires opt-in. • **WhatsApp** (Up to 98% open rate): Best for real-time service, dialogue. Not all EU guests use it; cost model. Opt-in required; WhatsApp Business API. • **Wallet Push** (Near-100% delivery): Best for in-stay, trigger-based upsells. Requires pass adoption at booking. GDPR-compliant opt-in at pass add. • **App Push** (Varies): Best for loyalty programme members. Near-zero independent hotel install rates. In-app consent required. *Email open rates: cross-industry average inflated by Apple MPP auto-opens. Travel & hospitality sector genuine open rate is closer to 22.57% (MailerLite 2025).

What Push Notifications via Wallet Passes Actually Deliver

The term 'push notifications' covers several distinct technologies — app-based push, browser push, and wallet pass push — and they do not perform equally. App push notifications require the guest to have downloaded and opted in to a hotel app, which for independent and boutique properties is functionally irrelevant: app install rates for single-property hotels are close to zero. Wallet pass push notifications work differently. The guest already has Apple Wallet or Google Wallet on their device — it is the same app that houses their boarding passes and payment cards. Adding a hotel pass takes a single tap from the booking confirmation email. Once added, the pass can send push notifications that land on the lock screen, without any additional opt-in barrier and without competing with the email inbox. **The performance case for wallet push** • Near-100% delivery rate — notifications arrive on the lock screen regardless of inbox behaviour or email client settings. • 22% click-through rate — according to wallet pass benchmark data published by FanCircles in December 2025, wallet pass notifications outperform email, SMS, and social media by 5 to 20 times on CTR. • Geo-triggering capability — Google has extended geofence notifications to all standard wallet pass types, allowing hotels to trigger relevant notifications when a guest is near the spa, pool, or F&B outlet. • Persistent communication layer — unlike a push notification that is dismissed and forgotten, the pass remains on the device. The hotel's branding, the guest's room number, a current offer, and loyalty points balance are always one swipe away. • No app download required — the adoption barrier that kills hotel app strategies does not exist for wallet passes.

WhatsApp for Hotels: The European Context

WhatsApp is not a universally applicable hotel communication channel, but it is particularly well-suited to the European markets tiketo serves. Penetration is extremely high in Spain and the Benelux countries — WhatsApp is the primary messaging platform for personal communication in both markets. Guests from these countries are more likely to prefer and respond to a WhatsApp message from a hotel than a guest from North America, where SMS is the equivalent preference. Research cited by Straiv in 2025 puts WhatsApp open rates at up to 98%, with messages five times more likely to be opened than email. Unlike SMS, WhatsApp supports rich formatting, images, and interactive buttons — useful for presenting an upgrade offer or a spa booking link in a visual format. **Where WhatsApp fits — and where it does not** • Best fit: Real-time service communication during the stay. A guest asking about checkout time, requesting extra towels, or responding to an upsell offer — these are natural WhatsApp interactions. • Best fit: Check-in reminders and short pre-arrival messages for guests who have opted in. • Weaker fit: Formal transactional communication (booking confirmations, invoices). Guests expect these via email, and WhatsApp is a poor format for longer documents. • Weaker fit: Post-stay review requests. Email consistently outperforms WhatsApp for post-stay follow-up because it gives the guest space and a persistent link to act on in their own time. WhatsApp requires a WhatsApp Business API account and per-message costs for hotel-initiated conversations. It is most cost-effective for properties with a high proportion of European leisure guests, where uptake is likely to be strong. For hotels with a predominantly business travel or North American guest mix, SMS may be a more reliable fallback.

Which Channel to Use at Each Stage of the Guest Journey

The answer to the 'push notifications vs email' question is not one or the other — it is a sequenced multi-channel strategy where each channel is used at the moment where it performs best. The table below provides a practical reference framework for 3–5 star hotels in Spain and Benelux: • **Booking Confirmation:** Email (Transactional confirmation) + Wallet pass delivery prompt • **Pre-Arrival (72 hrs):** Email (Upsell offer + practical arrival info) + Wallet push notification • **Arrival Day:** Wallet push (Room ready alert) + SMS (if no pass) • **In-Stay (Day 1):** Wallet push (Welcome offer) + WhatsApp (opted-in real-time service) • **In-Stay (Mid-stay):** Wallet push (Geo-triggered upsell) + WhatsApp (service requests) • **Departure Eve:** Wallet push (Late checkout offer) + Email (checkout instructions) • **Post-Stay (24 hrs):** Email (Review request) • **Post-Stay (7–10 days):** Wallet push (Return incentive) + Email (loyalty reminder) **A few principles underpin this framework:** Email owns the formal bookends of the journey — confirmation and post-stay. These are the moments where guests expect a more considered, longer-form communication. Wallet push owns the in-stay and time-sensitive moments. The lock screen is where guests are when they are at the hotel, and the pass is the most frictionless way to reach them there. WhatsApp works as a real-time service layer for opted-in European guests, and as a secondary push channel at moments of high engagement.

A Practical Example: Moving From Single-Channel to Multi-Channel Communication

A 3-star city hotel in Barcelona operated a single-channel communication strategy: every guest interaction from booking to post-stay was handled via email. Pre-arrival open rates looked strong at around 38%, but the hotel's marketing manager suspected the Apple MPP effect was masking real engagement — particularly among their predominantly Spanish and Dutch leisure guest base. After auditing their actual click-through rate (1.3%, below the already-low hospitality average of 1.4%) and their post-stay review request response rate (under 8%), they restructured their channel approach: 1. Booking confirmation email retained — with the addition of a wallet pass delivery link ('Add your stay to Apple / Google Wallet'). 2. Pre-arrival email retained for content-rich communication, sent 72 hours before arrival. 3. Arrival-day room ready alert moved to wallet pass push notification — removing the email entirely and using the lock screen instead. 4. In-stay communication moved to wallet push for time-sensitive offers, and WhatsApp for Spanish-speaking guests who had opted in. 5. Post-stay review request retained on email, timed to 24 hours post-checkout. 6. Return incentive moved to wallet pass push, timed to 10 days post-checkout — replacing an email sequence that was generating minimal conversion. The restructured approach produced a measurable increase in ancillary spend per stay (driven by in-stay wallet push offers) and a higher post-stay review volume, partly because the simplified single-link email request was less competitive with the other messages guests were receiving from the hotel.