A Newsletter for Returning Long-Stay Guests

The list is smaller than you think and worth more than a campaign. Four blocks, sent after a stay ends, keep a returning guest from starting the search again.

Last updated: November 2, 2026

Most hosts who say they have an email list have a spreadsheet of names they've never written to. That's not a list, it's a record of past stays. The difference between the two is one email that gives a reader something they can use, sent at the moment they're starting to think about next year. That moment is roughly two weeks after they leave, not two weeks before you want a booking.

Key Takeaways

• The list is narrower than it feels. Guests who stayed a week, or who asked about coming back, are the list. Everyone else is a record.
• Four blocks, one link. Dates that opened, what changed, a pattern you noticed, and a single place to book.
• Consent belongs at booking. Ask once, say what it's for, write the answer down next to the reservation.
• A channel's guest list isn't your mailing list. Check the terms before anything leaves a platform's messaging system.
• Replies beat opens. An open rate tells you an inbox rendered an image. A reply tells you somebody is thinking about next year.

Who belongs on the list

Start by cutting it down. A list of forty people who chose your flat for a specific reason is worth more than a list of four hundred who passed through, and it's easier to write for.

Three groups qualify. Guests who stayed long enough to have a routine in your place, because a week in a flat is a week of knowing where the coffee is. Guests who asked, in a message or at the door, whether the same weeks would be free next year. And guests who've already come back once, since a second stay is the only evidence of preference you'll ever get for free.

Three groups don't. One-nighters, whose decision is mostly about a bed near a station. Guests whose only contact with you was through a channel's messaging thread and who never gave you an address. And anyone you can't name a reason for, because "they stayed here once" isn't a segmentation, it's a database.

There's a size test worth applying. If you can't remember what a guest liked about the place, they probably can't remember what they liked either, and the email you'd send them is the same generic email you'd send everybody. Cut them. A shorter list is the reason the next email can say something true.

Four blocks that earn an open

A returning guest doesn't open an email because it's from you. They open it because the subject line promises something about a specific week. Four blocks, in this order, do that job.

Block one: the dates that just opened. Not "book now for summer" but the actual window, named: the two weeks in June that came free when a long booking moved, or the fortnight in September you've decided to hold. A guest who stayed for ten nights last year is thinking in fortnights. Give them a fortnight to think about.

Block two: what changed. One thing, described plainly. The mattress in the second bedroom. The shower that no longer runs cold for the first three minutes. The café on the corner that opened in March. This block is where most newsletters either earn trust or lose it, because a list of six improvements reads like a renovation update and one specific change reads like a person.

If the change means new photos, they need to match the listing the guest will land on. localsbnb.com imports the title, photos, base capacity and calendar structure from an Airbnb listing, so the page behind the link and the calendar the dates come from describe the same flat.

Block three: the pattern you noticed. This is the block only you can write. The guest who always books the week after a public holiday. The couple who asked about the same restaurant twice. The family that needs the cot. Naming a pattern is the strongest possible signal that a human wrote the email, and it's also a small risk, so keep it to one sentence and keep it kind.

Block four: one link. Not a menu of pages, one link to one place where the dates and the price sit together. Every extra link splits the reader's attention and none of them makes the email more useful. If the reader has to choose between four destinations, most of them choose none.

That's the whole email. Four blocks, under two hundred words, plain text. The temptation is to make it look like a campaign, with a header image and three columns and a footer of social icons. Resist it. A plain email from a person reads as a message; a designed email reads as marketing, and the reader has already decided how to treat marketing.

Sending it without breaking consent

The consent question arrives before the content question, whether or not you notice it. A guest who booked through a channel gave that channel their details for the purpose of that booking. That isn't the same permission as an invitation to your mailing list, and the two get confused constantly.

Handle it at booking, in one message. Ask whether they'd like to hear about the same weeks next year, say what you'd send and how often, and record the answer where you'll find it again. A line in the reservation notes is enough: asked on this date, said yes, by email. That line is the whole record for a host with two units, and it takes ten seconds.

Then honour the reply. If somebody says no, or doesn't answer, they're not on the list. Silence isn't consent, and a guest who didn't answer one question in a booking thread is not waiting for a follow-up.

The channel's terms matter too. Some allow a messaging thread to continue for a period after a stay; almost none treat their inbox as a source of addresses for your own campaigns. Read the terms before exporting anything, and if the answer is unclear, ask the platform rather than assuming. When a guest does reply to a message, the answer lands in your inbox, and in LOCALSBNB that inbox covers Airbnb conversations only, which is worth knowing before you promise a same-day reply on four channels.

There's a practical habit underneath all of this. Keep the list in one place, with three columns: how they booked, when they consented, and the last thing they said about the flat. The third column is what makes the next email possible.

Measuring something other than opens

Open rates are the least useful number in email and the easiest to quote, which is why they get quoted. An open can mean a person read it, a preview pane loaded an image, or a privacy setting did something nobody fully understands. None of those tell you whether the email was worth sending.

Four counts tell you more, and all of them are visible without a dashboard.

Replies. One reply per send is a working list. It means somebody read far enough to have a question, and a question is the beginning of a booking conversation.

Direct bookings in the fortnight after the send. Not attribution, just the count, kept next to the date you sent it. Over a year, the pattern is either there or it isn't.

Repeat stays from the people on the list, measured against repeat stays from people who aren't. That comparison is crude and it's still the most honest one available, because it asks whether the list is doing anything a channel wouldn't have done anyway.

Unsubscribes and silence. A list that shrinks slowly is healthy. A list that never shrinks is a list nobody is reading.

Once a year, sit down with those four numbers and cut the bottom of the list. The names that never replied, never booked, and never opened anything in twelve months are costing you the only thing that matters here, which is attention.

FAQ

Can I email guests who booked through a channel?

Only where you have your own permission to do so, taken at booking and recorded. A booking gives the channel the guest's details for that stay. It doesn't give you a mailing list. Check the channel's terms and take consent yourself rather than treating an inbox as a source of addresses.

How often should the newsletter go out?

Three or four times a year is plenty for a host with a handful of units. Once when next season's dates open, once mid-season if something changed, once in the quiet month. More often than that and the email stops being news and starts being noise.

What if nobody opens it?

Change the subject line before you change the list. A subject line that names a specific window does more work than any redesign. If two sends in a row get nothing back, the list is either too broad or the email is about you rather than about the guest's next trip.

A short list, four plain blocks and a date you asked permission. That's the whole system, and it costs an afternoon twice a year. localsbnb.com keeps the calendar those dates come from, so the window you offer in an email is the window that's actually open.

---

This article is general guidance for hosts and isn't legal, tax or insurance advice. Rules on contacting past guests, and the terms that govern each platform's messaging system, differ by place and change over time. Confirm the current requirements with the competent authority and the current terms of each platform you use before you send.