Stop Sending Guest Emails Manually — Automate the Entire Journey
The email you forgot to send
It’s 11pm. You’re scrolling through tomorrow’s check-ins and realise you never sent the pre-arrival email to the family arriving at 2pm. The one with the door code, the Wi-Fi password, the parking instructions, and the note about the tricky gate latch.
You type it out from memory, attach the wrong PDF (that was the old check-in guide), and hit send. The guest replies at midnight asking which gate. You’re up until 1am.
This happens more often than any host wants to admit. Not because you’re disorganised — because manually sending the right email to the right guest at the right time, for every booking, across every property, is a task that scales terribly.
What the Automations addon does
Airflow’s Automations addon replaces manual guest communication with triggered, personalised emails that send themselves. You set them up once, and they run for every booking, every property, every guest — without you touching your inbox.
Seven trigger points across the booking journey
| Trigger | When it fires | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Booking confirmed | Immediately after payment | Welcome email, booking summary, what to expect |
| Pre-arrival | Configurable days before check-in | Directions, parking, local tips, packing suggestions |
| Check-in day | Morning of arrival | Door codes, Wi-Fi, emergency contacts, house rules |
| Mid-stay | Configurable days into the stay | ”How’s everything?” check-in, upsell local experiences |
| Check-out day | Morning of departure | Departure instructions, key return, cleaning schedule |
| Post-checkout | Configurable days after departure | Thank you, review request, return booking discount |
| Balance due | When a payment balance is outstanding | Gentle reminder, payment link, due date |
Each trigger is independently configurable per property. Your beachfront villa might need different pre-arrival instructions than your city apartment. Set them up separately, and they’ll fire correctly for each resource.
Merge tags for personalisation
Every email supports merge tags that pull from your booking data:
{guest_name}— the guest’s first name{property_name}— the property they booked{check_in_date}— formatted arrival date{check_out_date}— formatted departure date{nights}— total nights{total_amount}— booking total
“Hi {guest_name}, we’re looking forward to welcoming you to {property_name} on {check_in_date}” becomes “Hi Sarah, we’re looking forward to welcoming you to Villa Azure on 15 June” — automatically.
Scheduled report delivery
Beyond guest emails, the Automations addon can send you scheduled reports: weekly booking summaries, monthly revenue breakdowns, occupancy reports. Pick the frequency, pick the time, and the report lands in your inbox without you logging into the portal.
The real cost of manual emails
“I only have 3 properties, I can handle the emails myself.”
Let’s do the maths. Three properties, average 80% occupancy, average 4-night stay. That’s roughly 220 bookings per year. If you send 3 emails per booking (confirmation, pre-arrival, post-checkout), that’s 660 emails per year.
At 5 minutes per email (finding the template, filling in the details, checking the dates, hitting send), that’s 55 hours per year. More than a full working week spent copying and pasting check-in instructions.
And that’s the optimistic version — the one where you never forget, never send the wrong details, and never have a guest arrive without a door code.
Use cases
The property manager who sleeps through check-in
Maria manages 5 apartments in Lisbon. Check-ins happen between 2pm and 8pm, and she used to be glued to her phone all afternoon sending door codes. Guests on different flights, arriving at different times, needing different instructions for different apartments.
Now, the check-in email fires automatically on the morning of arrival. Every guest gets the right door code, the right Wi-Fi password, the right apartment-specific instructions. Maria’s phone stays in her pocket. Her guests arrive informed and happy.
Time saved: ~12 hours/month. Missed check-ins: zero.
The safari lodge that nurtures every booking
A luxury safari lodge in Botswana uses the full automation sequence: booking confirmation with a packing list, pre-arrival email with transfer details and weather forecast, mid-stay check-in, and a post-checkout email with a photo gallery link and review request.
The guest experience feels premium and personal — but it’s entirely automated. The lodge owner focuses on the in-person experience, not the email admin.
Guest satisfaction scores increased 15% after implementing automations.
The seasonal host who disappears in winter
Tom runs a holiday let in the Scottish Highlands. Bookings happen year-round, but he travels in winter. Before Automations, he’d miss emails, forget to send check-in details, and occasionally have guests arrive to locked doors with no information.
With Automations configured, his property runs on autopilot. Bookings come in, confirmation emails go out, pre-arrival details follow, and post-checkout review requests send themselves. Tom checks his portal once a week from wherever he is.
Peace of mind: priceless. And affordable — see current pricing.
What it replaces
The difference between Airflow’s automations and generic email tools is context. Mailchimp doesn’t know when your guest checks in. Sendinblue doesn’t have the door code. A virtual assistant costs hundreds per month. Airflow does it all — because the automations are built into the same system that manages your bookings. See current addon pricing.
30-day free trial
The Automations addon is activated from your Airflow portal with a single click. The 30-day trial gives you full access to all seven triggers, merge tags, per-property configuration, and scheduled reports.
Set up your first automation in under 10 minutes. Watch the emails send themselves. Wonder why you ever did it manually.
The bottom line
Guest communication is the single biggest time drain in running a booking business. It’s repetitive, error-prone, and scales linearly with your bookings. Every new property, every new booking, every new guest adds another email you need to remember to send.
Automations turn that linear cost into a flat one. Set it up once. Let it run. Focus on the parts of hosting that actually need a human touch.