Email newsletters,
push notifications,
and which one wins what.

Push lands on the lock screen, email lands in the inbox — a real difference in reach, but it isn't the whole story. Email and push do different jobs, and the strongest tourism marketing programmes use both. Here's how to choose.

Key takeaways

They do different jobs: email suits considered, detailed messages; push suits short, timely, can't-miss alerts.

Push lands on the lock screen and is hard to miss; email lands in a crowded inbox and is easy to skip.

Use both — email for depth and storytelling, push for time-sensitive trade alerts like availability, rate changes and FAM invitations.

Push only works if you respect it: over-send and people switch it off. Discipline beats volume.

The honest comparison

Two channels, two jobs

The difference is real. A travel-industry email newsletter mostly goes unread, lost in a crowded inbox. A push notification — whether web push to a browser or mobile push to an installed app — lands directly on the lock screen. That's not marketing puff. That's how the channels work.

But push doesn't replace email. They do different jobs. Email is good at long-form content, photo-rich storytelling, segmented offers that need explanation, and content subscribers can search and re-read months later. Push is good at brief, time-sensitive, single-message updates that lose value if read tomorrow. Choose one over the other and you weaken your marketing. Use both well and you reach your audience across the full range of moments that matter.

InboxWhere email competes for attention

Lock screenWhere push arrives directly

~£0Marginal cost per push send after setup

Dimension	Email newsletter	Push notification
Where it lands	The inbox, among everything else	The lock screen, directly
Cost per send (after setup)	List-based subscription (£30–£500/mo) plus design and copy time	Effectively free — you pay only the underlying push provider, which has generous free tiers
Best content length	Long-form. Photos, multiple sections, links to deeper content.	One sentence. One image (optional). One link.
Time-to-build per send	Hours. Design, copy, segmentation, test, send.	Minutes. Title, body, link, send.
Guest opt-in	Email address required. Single opt-in (or double opt-in in some markets).	Browser/OS prompt. Single click — but the prompt is more visible and easier to dismiss.
Searchable archive	Yes. Guests can find old emails months later.	No. Once dismissed, the message is gone unless saved.
Right for	Monthly content, seasonal campaigns, FAM trip invitations, multi-property newsletters, photo-rich storytelling.	Last-minute availability, flash offers, single news items, anniversary nudges, post-stay thank-yous.
Wrong for	Time-critical single messages — by the time the guest opens the email, the moment has passed.	Long content, segmented multi-section campaigns, anything you'd want the guest to re-read later.

Why the open-rate gap is real

Email inbox crowding has been getting worse for fifteen years. The average adult receives 110+ emails a day. Even the best-written travel newsletter is competing with bank statements, work updates, Amazon receipts and supermarket promotions. A push notification, by contrast, lands on the lock screen as one of perhaps 15-20 daily interruptions and is dismissed or read in under three seconds. Different surface, different attention budget, different rules.

When email wins

What email still does best

Email is not dead. It's the right channel for several jobs that push simply cannot do.

Long-form content

A monthly newsletter from a luxury safari lodge group with a full conservation update, two new room reveals, a chef profile and a destination essay — that's an email. Push would give you 80 characters and one link.

Photography-led storytelling

Tourism is a visual industry. The big landscape shot, the gallery of new suites, the before-and-after of a renovation — those need email's real estate to land. Push notifications support a single small image at most.

Segmented multi-offer campaigns

"Past clients who travelled to Kenya get this offer; past clients who travelled to Botswana get a different one; trade contacts get a third version." Email handles segmentation natively and at scale. Push segmentation works but is harder to manage when each segment needs different copy, links and visuals.

Trade-facing content

Detailed trade newsletters for tour operator product managers, FAM trip itineraries, post-show recaps, training updates — email is the established channel of the travel trade and changing it now would just confuse the audience.

Searchable archive

A guest who reads your email about a special offer can search their inbox three weeks later and find it. A push notification dismissed at 6pm yesterday is gone forever.

When push wins

What push does that email can't

Push is best at moments. The categories where it consistently outperforms email:

Time-sensitive availability

"Three rooms left at our [property] for next weekend." If you send that by email, the offer has often expired by the time the guest sees it. Push lands within seconds.

Flash offers with a real window

Genuine 24-72 hour offers — last-minute booking incentives, single-day rate drops, weather-dependent activity slots. Push delivers them while the offer is still live. Email arrives when it doesn't matter.

Single-message updates

"Our new spa is now open." "We've added direct flights from Joburg." "Our chef has just won a James Beard." One sentence, one link, done. Push is built for it. Email feels overcooked for it.

Post-stay nudges

"Thank you for staying with us — would you leave a review?" "It's a year since you visited — special anniversary rate inside." These are short, personal, and benefit from immediacy. Open rates run very high.

Trade-side immediacy

Rep companies and PR agencies in particular benefit from push for embargo-lift press release drops, last-minute trade-show meeting confirmations, and same-day rate updates to a finite list of tour operator contacts. Trade audiences appreciate timely, relevant pings and dislike inbox clutter.

Practical playbook

How to use both well

The strongest tourism marketing programmes use email and push as complementary channels rather than alternatives. A simple structure that works:

Run one email newsletter per month. Not weekly, not fortnightly — monthly. Make it good. Photos, a real story, a clear single offer if you're including one. Quality over frequency.
Use push for everything time-sensitive. Last-minute availability, single news items, post-stay nudges. Aim for one to two pushes per week, never more, and never without a specific reason for the recipient to care today.
Capture both signals at every touchpoint. When a guest checks in, capture email. When they visit the website, prompt for web push. When they download an app, prompt for mobile push. Build the parallel lists.
Don't duplicate. If a flash offer goes out by push, don't follow up by email two hours later. Pick the right channel and use it once. Duplication trains recipients to ignore both.
Watch the unsubscribe and opt-out rates separately. They behave differently. Push opt-outs spike when frequency is too high; email unsubscribes spike when content is too generic. Different signals require different fixes.

A note for rep companies and PR agencies

Trade-facing audiences — tour operator product managers, journalists, agents — sit in inboxes that are even more crowded than consumer ones. The case for push is stronger here, particularly for time-sensitive trade communication: meeting requests at trade shows, embargo lifts, rate updates, FAM trip availability. We build push systems for rep companies and PR agencies in the travel trade, and the open-rate uplift versus email is consistently larger than for consumer-facing tourism brands.

Common questions

Frequently asked questions.

What is the average open rate for an email newsletter vs a push notification?

For travel and hospitality, email newsletters mostly go unread — lost in a crowded inbox. Push notifications land directly on the lock screen, web and app. The difference is real and well documented across the industry.

Should hotels and safari lodges replace email newsletters with push notifications?

No. They do different jobs. Email is the right channel for monthly content, photo-rich storytelling, archived material guests can search later, and segmented offers that need explanation. Push is the right channel for time-sensitive messages — last-minute availability, flash offers, single news items, post-stay nudges. The strongest tourism marketing programmes use both.

How much do push notifications cost per send compared to email?

Email newsletter platforms typically charge by list size — a monthly fee that scales with your subscriber count, plus design and copy time per send. Web push is essentially free per send once the system is set up — you pay only for the underlying push service, which is free or near-free for most tourism businesses. Setup costs are similar; ongoing costs are far lower for push.

Do guests have to install an app to receive push notifications from a hotel?

Not for web push. A guest visiting your website can opt-in to push notifications via their browser — no app needed. Mobile push (delivered via your branded app) is more powerful but requires the guest to install your app, which is realistic mainly for hotel groups and lodge collections with substantial repeat-guest traffic.

Are push notifications GDPR-compliant?

Yes, when implemented correctly. Push notifications require explicit opt-in (the browser or OS prompt is the consent mechanism). You should still publish a clear privacy policy explaining what messages you'll send and how to unsubscribe, and respect unsubscribes immediately. The GDPR mechanics for push are simpler than for email because the consent step is built into the platform, not handled by you.

What types of messages should I send via push vs email?

Push: last-minute availability, flash sale (3-day window), today's weather/conditions for arriving guests, post-stay thank-you, anniversary nudge, single news item ('we just opened our new spa'). Email: monthly newsletter, seasonal campaigns, photo-rich content, multi-property updates, segmented offers needing explanation, FAM trip invitations to trade contacts. The rule of thumb: if it would feel intrusive interrupting someone's evening, it's email; if it loses value if read tomorrow, it's push.

Can rep companies and PR agencies use push notifications?

Yes — and rep companies and PR agencies are particularly good fits because their audience is a finite list of trade contacts (tour operators, journalists, agents) who appreciate timely, relevant updates and dislike inbox clutter. Push works well for FAM trip slots, embargo-lifting press release drops, last-minute trade-show meeting requests and same-day rate updates. Email remains the right channel for press kits, monthly trade newsletters and detailed campaign reports.

Will my guests find push notifications annoying?

Only if you misuse them. Guests find push annoying when the messages are too frequent (more than once or twice a week), too generic, or commercially pushy. They find them welcome when each message is timely, specific, and feels worth interrupting them for. The discipline is harder than email, but the payoff is direct lock-screen reach — which is only sustainable if you respect the audience you're entering.

Both channels, built right

If you run a travel trade business and want both email and push working properly, we build both. More on push notifications →

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Email newsletters,push notifications,and which one wins what.