Depending on where your booking came from, you may not have their real email. Airbnb & Booking.com mask the guest email. Direct and VRBO provide the real email, but I don’t know of a way to download all your past guest’s contact info. Other than to go reservation by reservation. If you use other software to collect their info, like Stayfi or Happy Guest, you can get it from them.

It’s generally not ok (and in some places illegal) to send unsolicited email or texts. It’s frustrating to realize that, yes, you are probably sitting on hundreds of phone numbers of past guests, but without their prior consent it’s just not ok to market to them. 

We ran into this same conundrum last year and took steps like ​@HostedHavensCo recommend to get ahead of it: set up systems to begin collecting phone, email, and permission from guests, and build a list that way. We did this in a few ways:

1. Yes, set up Stayfi to start capturing phone and email from all guests
2. Make a newsletter at Mailchimp or Email Octopus and provided in-room ways for guests to join it (a printed material with a QR code on it works well)
3. After-checkout, you can send a link to your signup form to the guest on VRBO, Booking, and of course Direct… but not via Airbnb (you will be penalized here). And, for Booking, make sure you whitelist the signup url via the Extranet or they will filter it out.

To answer your question about downloading data: you can make customized guest data exports from the Metrics screen in Hospitable. Click on the Details tab near the bottom of the screen… and use the Filters and Columns buttons to customize the data….. Just don’t go spamming people!

I just started using Stayfi, which provides a ‘splash page’ for guests to log into your wifi, and allows them to opt in or opt out of future marketing offers.   They have a pretty cool integration with Viator, which allows guests to book excursions, restaurants, etc. directly through their Stayfi integration.   Viator offers an 8% commission for all bookings that come through your Stayfi integration.

I’ve just started using Stayfi in the past few weeks, so no definitive results yet, but the concept is very cool, and basically gives the ‘ok’ to market back to previous guests who have opted in to email marketing.

I can share our StayFi numbers. Since enabling it, just over half of all guests who used the wifi consented to our marketing. Those numbers are pretty good.

We have ​@StayFi_Ivan here from the StayFi team. Ivan–any advice or insights for the community?

Hi everyone – love seeing all the great feedback on StayFi!

As Jason mentioned, StayFi makes it easy to collect both contact info and marketing consent from all guests when they connect to WiFi. On average, properties collect data from about 80% of guests this way, and since guests explicitly opt in, you’re set up to follow up via email and SMS compliantly.

If you're looking for a hardware-free alternative, we also offer a Pre-Arrival data collection option. This works by sharing a StayFi Homepage link (with info about the property, local recs, etc.) in your pre-arrival messages. You can require guests to enter their email to unlock it. This method typically captures around 10% of guest data, and works well as a lightweight option to start building your list.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions—or if you'd like to schedule a quick, no-pressure demo with our team to see how it works in more detail you can do so here!