Optimise Your Guest Communications and Hotel Marketing Campaigns in 2026 with These Quick Exercises!

We know it’s one of the busiest times of year. As a hotel marketer, you might be occupied hosting holiday events, celebrating the end of the year with your team or just ready to take some time off and relax. We all know that classic line…

“Let’s circle back on that in January”

But hold on just a minute before you completely close the book on this year! We’re here to help you make the most out of the last weeks of 2025, even if you’re ready to log off for the holidays.

In this article, we’ll give you some tasks that you can easily action, whether you’ve got some quiet time to focus during the festive season, or you’re already mentally on holiday. With these taken care of, you’ll be feeling refreshed and ready to get going on 2026!

Do This Before Your Christmas Party: Review Your Transactional Communications

The end of the holiday season is a good time to review your transactional email communications, such as confirmation emails, pre-arrival messages, and post-departure emails. Check the information in your existing communications for accuracy, relevance, and note anything that needs to be updated, changed, or added. Here are a few things you might look out for:

• Have your restaurant hours changed?
• Is there anything different about your check-in procedures?
• Is there anything that should be added to your FAQ?
• Have you renovated your rooms? It may be time to update those photos!

We recommend that you evaluate these regularly and update the content with the seasons. This may seem like a small task, but with refreshed and relevant communications, you can guarantee that you’re making the most out of every interaction you have with your guests!

Are you getting the most out of your guest communications? Pre-arrival campaigns are powerful tools for hoteliers to provide information, build excitement, grow relationships, and boost ancillary revenue! Head to this blog to discover how pre-arrival campaigns help hoteliers engage and delight guests before their stay!

Now that you’ve reviewed your transactional emails, let’s do a bit of planning to give you a head start on 2026!

Do This in Between End-of-Year Meetings: Mark Your Calendars for 2026

While everyone is busy wrapping up the year, it’s time to mark off those special dates on your calendar and see what’s coming up for the year ahead. Holidays can be helpful markers to inspire travel bookings and should be considered in your hotel marketing communication and campaign strategies. But don’t just mark off your standard holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Christmas. Think outside the box!

🏞️ Keep it local!

You’re the best expert to know what’s happening in your local area. Act as a trusted guide to your guests and think of the nearby events that might attract guests to visit. Here are a few examples you can add to your list:

• Public holidays and school holidays
• City marathons, charity runs, sporting events, concerts
• Recurring festivals, cultural celebrations or seasonal events
• University graduation periods

🏅What’s happening in the world?

You might not be based in one of the cities where these events are being held, but you need to be aware of them! Make sure you can direct your guests to the best place to watch these global events:

• Olympic Winter Games – 6-22 February 2026 in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy
• Paralympic Winter Games – 6-15 March 2026 in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy
• Eurovision Song Contest – 12-16 May 2026 in Vienna, Austria
• FIFA World Cup – 8 June – 8 July 2026 in Canada, Mexico, and the United States
• Commonwealth Games – July 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland

💼 Take care of business!

Don’t just look at what might attract people to book for leisure. Explore your opportunities to capture people travelling for business.

• Trade shows, exhibitions and corporate conferences
• Industry association meetings
• Local business networking events
• Academic conferences

☀️ Bonus: Solar Eclipse

Did you know that there’s a solar eclipse happening on 12 August 2026? It will be most visible in Iceland and Spain, but you’ll be able to see partial eclipses all across Europe. This could be a fun thing to highlight to your guests staying during this time, noting the best places to watch from and giving some safety tips!

Now that you’ve got your calendar set up for the year ahead, let’s take a look and see how you can make your hotel marketing more streamlined in 2026!

Do this on a quiet afternoon: Explore New Tools for Success!

When life starts to quiet down, and everyone is taking time away, now is the perfect time to do a little research and see where you can make your team’s processes simpler and more efficient. One of our favourite tools to help hoteliers improve the efficiency of their marketing campaigns is automated programmes.

According to Zapier, marketers are saving up to 25 hours per week using automation tools. They also said that automations improved morale and efficiency.

When it comes to recurring events like the holidays, implementing automated programmes into your hotel marketing strategy can be a valuable tactic to save your team valuable time and resources, while creating consistent and targeted campaigns that will drive revenue!

Check out this example of how we created a Black Friday campaign with an automated programme.

We understand the value of automated programmes, which is why we make sure that For-Sight customers can take advantage of market-leading communication tools that integrate with our powerful CRM. For more than fifteen years, we have partnered with Dotdigital to offer only the best in the market to our customers. Click here to learn more about how your hotel can use automated programmes in your seasonal hotel marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

It can be tempting to slow down during the holidays, but this time of year gives you a great opportunity to review, plan, and explore new opportunities to set yourself up for the future!

We hope you enjoyed this article! Want to stay up to date with more insights to inspire your guest communications and hotel marketing? Sign up for our newsletter! We send the latest For-Sight news, trends, and tips for hoteliers every month, straight to your inbox.