Home › Newsletters vs push notifications

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

Open rates of 20% versus 90% is a real gap, 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.

The honest comparison

Two channels, two jobs

The numbers people quote are real. A typical travel-industry email newsletter opens at 18-22%. A push notification — whether web push to a browser or mobile push to an installed app — opens at 85-95%. 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 guests 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 guests across the full range of moments that matter.

20%Average travel-industry email open rate
90%Typical web push open rate
~£0Marginal cost per push send after setup
DimensionEmail newsletterPush notification
Average open rate (travel/hospitality)18–22%85–95% web push, 70–85% mobile push
Cost per send (after setup)List-based subscription (£30–£500/mo) plus design and copy timeEffectively free — you pay only the underlying push provider, which has generous free tiers
Best content lengthLong-form. Photos, multiple sections, links to deeper content.One sentence. One image (optional). One link.
Time-to-build per sendHours. Design, copy, segmentation, test, send.Minutes. Title, body, link, send.
Guest opt-inEmail 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 archiveYes. Guests can find old emails months later.No. Once dismissed, the message is gone unless saved.
Right forMonthly 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 forTime-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 UK adult receives 110+ emails a day. Even the best-written hotel 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 guests who stayed in Kenya get this offer; past guests who stayed in 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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 guests to ignore both.
  5. 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.
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Both channels, built right

If you run a hotel, lodge, rep company or PR agency and want both email and push working properly, we build both. More on push notifications →

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