Post-stay email marketing implications for the hotel industry: Role of email features,attitude,revisit intention and leisure involvement level

Abstract

Despite their widespread use in the hotel industry, limited research has been conducted on post-stay emails. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the effects of post-stay email features on customers’ attitudes towards a brand and their revisit intention. The email features analysed in the study consisted of personalization, message copy, interactivity, financial and illustration. Further, the effectiveness of each email feature was measured based on respondents’ leisure involvement levels. Results indicated that personalization, interactivity and financial features were significant predictors of revisit intention depending on customers’ involvement levels, while attitude was a significant mediator. Overall, the findings from the study add to the knowledge of how post-stay emails can be used when formulating customer retention strategies.

Keywords

Customer retention customer segmentation email marketing hospitality marketing leisure involvement level

Introduction

The hotel industry relies on email to reach their prospective and existing customers in all stages of their journey, from providing hotel information/promotions prior to their arrival to soliciting hotel reviews after their stay (Huang and Shyu, 2009). Among various types of hotel email marketing practices, post-stay emails are designed for customer acquisition and retention by encouraging them to join a guest loyalty program, provide feedback on their past stays or revisit the property. Post-stay emails can be personalized and build an emotional connection with customers by thanking and rewarding them for their stay. Additionally, post-stay emails tend to be opt-in emails, implying that these emails are more likely to be opened than other types of marketing emails (Hasouneh and Alqeed, 2010).

As ever-increasing numbers of customers open and read emails on the move via mobile devices (Chaffey, 2018), effectively designed post-stay emails can be a powerful communication method, keeping customers in contact with the brand. Research on email marketing is essential in the hotel industry to formulate guidelines on how to positively and effectively impact their prospective and current guests. However, few studies consider the effectiveness of hotel marketing emails, and studies regarding post-stay emails are especially rare. Therefore, the effectiveness of post-stay emails is unknown and there are no set strategies on designing post-stay emails. Also, segmenting email recipients is an essential step in designing an effective email marketing campaign that is more persuasive and relevant to individual customers. One way to segment customers in the hospitality and retail industries is by customer involvement level, indicative of a customer’s interests, needs or values regarding a subject (Josiam et al., 2005; Zaichkowsky, 1985). Involvement level can be associated with customer intention to revisit the hotel brand and may enable the hotel to send more influential and targeted emails (Gay et al., 2007).

To maximize the effectiveness of post-stay emails, this study aims to identify the email features that affect customer attitude and intention to revisit the hotel brand. By using the Stimulus (S)–Organism (O)–Responses (R) framework (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974), this study examines post-stay email features that develop customers’ positive attitudinal and behavioural responses towards the sender. Further, customers’ leisure involvement level is used as a segmenting variable, which should be considered in designing effective post-stay emails. Thus, the purposes of this study are (1) to identify salient post-stay email features that affect customer attitude towards the hotel brand, (2) to examine the mediating effect of attitude on the relationship between the post-stay email features and intention to revisit the hotel brand and (3) to compare the effects of the post-stay email features on attitude and intention to revisit the hotel brand according to the leisure involvement level. Based on the study outcomes, implications for developing effective post-stay emails and features are discussed.

Literature review

Email marketing in the hotel industry

Email is one of the most popular electronic communication tools (Law and Kua, 2009). As technology evolves along with the way email is used, customers are constantly seeking a real-time interaction via email with companies (Hartemo, 2016). Companies seeking to build closer relationships with customers have implemented email marketing as an important communication medium (Chaffey et al., 2009). About 49% of emails are opened on a mobile device (Chaffery, 2018), with this number likely to rise in the near future. This indicates that emails are a real-time communication tool, as users may view these emails within minutes of receiving them.

In the hotel industry, email is a promising electronic customer marketing tool, allowing operators to directly deliver messages or promotional items to target customers, which can enhance customer engagement and business performance (Marinova et al., 2002). The hotel industry sends emails more frequently than any other industry and has a higher percentage of email delivery to customers’ inboxes rather than being marked as a spam (Abrahams et al., 2010). According to recent studies, the email open-rate for the hospitality industry was at 40% (Brudner, 2018), while the opt-in rate was at 30% (Chaffey, 2018), which placed the industry the top five among the 13 industries analysed in the study. With the increased usage and development of email, understanding how email affects customers’ experiences is critical (Hsin et al., 2013). Lecinski (2011) noted how the information available in digital platforms, such as email, affected customers' decision-making processes by aligning with the concept of Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). In the hotel industry, Hilton Worldwide, a leading hospitality company, introduced an email check-in system in 2014 and integrated the digital-room key system in all hotel rooms worldwide (Egerton-Vernon and Rouhani, 2014). This emphasizes that email is an important communication method and a tool to deliver pleasant service experiences (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). Email further serves as a vehicle for enhanced relationships with customers by offering promotions and property information and by providing personalized services and receiving feedback (Murphy et al., 2006).

Post-stay emails: Engagement, perceived value and personalization

Post-stay email marketing is a customer acquisition and retention technique that encourages guests to build relationships with the brand and increase their intention to revisit the brand. In post-stay emails, customers are typically asked to sign up for loyalty programs, to leave feedback or to revisit the property (Chaffey et al., 2009). These emails can be highly personalized as the hotel has customers’ personal information from their past stay. More importantly, post-stay emails are opt-in emails, meaning customers have agreed to receive the email from the sender (Chang et al., 2013). Customers who choose to receive emails are known to be more loyal and profitable and have strong emotional bonds with the brands (Hasouneh and Alqeed, 2010).

Regardless of their potential effectiveness in terms of customer engagement and as retention marketing tools, few studies have considered the topic of post-stay emails. However, previous study findings from the general email marketing literature may provide insight into potential effects of post-stay emails. Customers usually opened emails when the perceived value of the email was high, and this further affected forwarding the message to other individuals (Miquel-Romero and Adame-Sánchez, 2013). Tam and Ho (2005) found that customers' preferred emails contained special offers, promotions and vouchers and real-time communication tools. When customers perceived these emails as meeting their personal needs, they developed a positive association with the sender (Miquel-Romero and Adame-Sánchez, 2013). These findings further indicate the importance of targeted and personalized email features, which may be done by sending post-stay emails. Customers responded quickly to these emails and viewed the sender more favourable (Hsin et al., 2013). Similarly, White et al. (2008) conducted a study on email personalization and how it affected click-through rates. The study found low or non-existent click-through rates when the email did not contain features that met the customer’s personal needs. Furthermore, the click-through rates were low when perceived values of the messages were low and when emails showed no signs of utilizing the customers' personal information.

Theoretical framework: Stimulus (S)–Organism (O)–Response (R)

In the Stimulus (S)–Organism (O)–Response (R) framework, Mehrabian and Russell (1974) suggested that the cause of behavioural changes depended on the quality of the stimulus transmitted to the organism. Applying the S-O-R model to the email marketing context, email contents act as stimulus by drawing customers’ attention, helping them develop positive attitudes towards the senders and resulting in positive behavioural responses towards the senders. Stimulus in digital atmospherics relates to aesthetic and functional cues that trigger certain emotional states in customers (Kawaf and Tagg, 2017), represented by email features in this study. Organism is the emotional and attitudinal state that is developed based upon the quality of communication with stimulus (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). The organism for this study is represented by customer attitudes towards the senders that are developed in reading the email. Response refers to behavioural reaction of the attitudinal state that is caused by stimuli (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). In this study, customers’ behavioural responses after reading post-stay emails are measured in terms of their intention to revisit the hotel brand.

Stimulus: Post-stay email features

Stimuli in emails are presented in several ways, including text, graphics, audio or video (Tam and Ho, 2005). Effective marketing emails can be developed by manipulating these features to draw readers’ attention to a call to action, to relocate cognitive resources and to invoke positive responses towards the sender (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). In that regard, post-stay email features can mainly be categorized into five different features: personalization, interactivity, message copy, financial and illustration (Tam and Ho, 2005).

Personalization feature

Huang and Shyu (2009) point out that the online marketing lacks social elements to build relationships with customers, as many online marketing campaigns make use of synchronized emails. Likewise, impersonal emails sent to customers are often considered to be unsolicited email. Especially, the absence of two important post-stay email elements makes the emails impersonal: a salutation with the name of the recipient and a closing statement without the name of the service employee (Huang & Shyu, 2009). Previous research in the marketing literature has noted that personalized emails or websites influence customer satisfaction (Crosby et al., 1990; Zviran et al., 2006), as well as relationship quality and customer loyalty (Huang and Shyu, 2009). Personalization can make customers feel unique and valued, and this can further help cultivate intimate relationships with customers. Huang and Shyu (2009) also note the stronger effects for female customers than male customers in building quality relationships with companies.

Message copy feature

The message copy feature refers to the textual content of post-stay emails and their relevancy to the objective of the email (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). Research indicates that the message should be aligned with the email’s subject and headline to increase its effectiveness (Lewis et al., 2013). Depending on the context and objectives of the email, the receivers may favour brief and concise messages to elicit an immediate response, whereas longer and more complex messages may be chosen to yield more customer engagement (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). The message and its appeal to customers may affect customers’ attitudes towards the sender (Lewis et al., 2013).

Interactivity feature

The interactivity feature refers to real-time communication tools, including social media sites or links to feedback and hotel websites. These interactivity features in post-stay emails provide an opportunity for companies to connect to the guests, which can lead to increased guest involvement and relationship building (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). By including these features in the email, customers can leave feedback regarding their stays, giving companies opportunities respond to their reviews and engage with them (Gaggioli, 2017). Social media responses by companies have been found to significantly influence tourists’ hotel reservation intention and customer satisfaction (Zhong et al., 2014).

Financial feature

The financial feature refers to special offers or promotions that contain monetary value. Hsin et al. (2013) indicate that customers find emails less intrusive if the emails contain financial incentives, noting that these emails create value for them. In addition, promotions and offers are found to be effective to capture customers’ attention, increase open-rates (Reichhart et al., 2013), lead to positive attitudes towards the brand and increase purchase intention (Hanaysha, 2017).

Illustration feature

Illustration features or images are utilized in more than 90% of emails in HTML-based contents (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). Emails or other advertising methods are becoming more visual-oriented than ever before, as previous research notes that the use of illustrations is effective in evoking customers’ interests and increasing marketing effectiveness (Simester et al., 2009). The use of images is found to be more effective in building relationships with customers regardless of the stage of the customer’s relationship with the brand (Lewis et al., 2013). However, Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty (2012) note that it is important to use proper number of illustrations in emails, as too many images in an email may irritate customers, whereas too few may fail to pique their interest.

Organism and response: Guest attitudes and intention for future action

Attitude is defined as beliefs, feelings and behavioural intention towards a certain brand, product or service (Alina, 2013). In the electronic commerce context, favourable attitudes towards a brand can encourage consumers to take further purchase actions (Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006). Ajzen and Fishbein (2000) note that the customers’ attitudes can be altered by companies’ post-purchase activities, such as making the effort to build relationships with customers. Ho and Bodoff (2014) indicate that attitude is a predictor of behavioural intention, and positive attitudes towards a brand can result in repurchase intention. These findings indicate that post-stay emails can be used as a retention technique, shaping customers’ attitudes towards a hotel brand and increasing their revisit intention.

Leisure involvement level

Involvement is defined as ‘a person’s perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests’ (Zaichkowsky, 1985). Previous studies thoroughly discussed the role of involvement and its influence on attitude and intention to comply in the context of marketing (Andrews et al., 1990; Laczniak et al., 1999; Muehling et al., 1993; Wilson et al., 2015). These studies tested whether people’s involvement levels could cause differences in terms of marketing effectiveness and found strong connections between individuals’ involvement levels and their attitudes/intentions. In that regard, post-stay emails can be more effectively used among customers of a certain involvement level to alter their attitudes and elicit positive reactions. Involvement can be hypothesized to have direct effects on intention (Huang and Shyu, 2009; Wilson et al., 2015). However, in the hospitality and retail marketing literature, levels of involvement are often used to segment customers and utilized to have moderating effects on behavioural intentions (Josiam et al., 2005; Oreg and Sverdlik, 2014; San Martín et al., 2011). Josiam et al. (2005) investigated tourists’ shopping intention and moderating effect of customer involvement using the involvement construct developed by Zaichkowsky (1985). In the study, tourists were grouped into high, medium and low involvement groups towards shopping. The results indicated that high involvement group was likely to have saved for shopping and showed increased shopping intention and motivation to shop. Furthermore, highly involved shoppers in online shopping were found to read marketing emails and messages carefully, whereas low involvement shoppers were less attentive to marketing messages (San Martín et al., 2011). Although few studies considered leisure involvement levels, previous findings indicate the possible moderating effect of involvement on the relationship between post-stay email features and customers’ revisit intention. Therefore, the involvement construct used in the study of Josiam et al. (2005) was modified to investigate the moderating effect of leisure involvement levels by hotel guests in this study.

Hypotheses

In applying the S-O-R theory framework to examine the degree to which post-stay email features elicit positive attitudes and revisit intention towards a sender, the email features (i.e. personalization, message copy, interactivity, financial and illustrations) served as stimuli, while attitude and revisit intention played the roles of organism and response, respectively. The study also used the customers' leisure involvement level as a moderator to segment customers. Therefore, this study hypothesized that the leisure involvement level moderates the effects of post-stay email features on customers' attitudes and intentions to revisit a hotel brand. The following hypotheses were developed and tested to measure the effects of the post-email features on customer attitudes and their intention to revisit the hotel brand (Figure 1).

H1: Leisure involvement level moderates the effects of post-stay email features (a-personalization, b-message copy, c-interactivity, d-financial and e-illustration) on attitude towards a hotel brand.

H2: Leisure involvement level moderates the effects of attitude towards a hotel brand on revisit intention to a hotel brand.

H3: The effect of post-stay email features on intention to revisit a hotel brand is mediated by attitude for both the high and low leisure involvement groups.

Figure 1.

The proposed theoretical model.

Methodology

Instruments

The structured survey questionnaire was developed to measure the effectiveness of post-stay email features and their effects on attitude and revisit intention while considering participants’ leisure involvement level. The survey questions were adapted from the previous research (i.e. Ho and Bodoff, 2014; Josiam et al., 2005; Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006) and modified to suit the context of this study (Figure 2). First, participants were asked if they had received at least one post-stay email from a hotel in 2016. This was a screening question, thus participants with no post-stay email experience in 2016 were removed from the sample. They were then asked to indicate their level of agreement that each post-stay email feature (personalization, message copy, interactivity, financial and illustration) had influenced their attitudes towards the hotel brand. Ten items measuring the involvement construct were adapted from the study by Josiam et al. (2005) and modified to measure their leisure involvement levels in selecting a hotel. In addition, six items measuring attitude towards the hotel brand were adapted from the study by Pavlou and Fygenson (2006) and three items measuring revisit intention were adapted from the study by Ho and Bodoff (2014). A 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) was used to measure the constructs.

Figure 2.

Involvement scale (Josiam et al., 2005).

For me, selecting a hotel for leisure purposes is given in Figure 2.

Data collection process and study population

Online surveys were distributed through Facebook and a southwestern university’s virtual educational board. The surveys were also distributed through FlyerTalk, an online customer forum where hospitality loyalty program members exchange information about hotel reward programs and other information related to travel. A total of 198 people participated in the survey, and 153 participants indicated that they had received at least one post-stay email in the previous year. As a result, a total of 153 responses were identified to be usable for the study. The sample was comprised of females (71%) and males (29%), with most participants between the ages of 25 and 29 years (59.5%) and with an annual income of <US$24,999 (50.4%). Demographic information is provided in Table 1.

Table 1.

Sample profile.

Demographic information (N = 153)
	N	(%)
Gender
Female	109	71.1
Male	44	28.9
Income
<$24,999	77	50.4
$25,000 to $49,999	40	26.1
$50,000 to $99,999	20	13.1
$100,000 or more	16	10.5
Education
High school graduate	11	7.2
Some college	65	42.5
College graduate	49	32.0
Post-graduate	23	15.0
Other	5	3.3
Age
20–29	91	59.3
30–39	25	16.3
40–49	23	15.1
Above 50	14	9.3

Data analysis method

Partial lease squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis was used to identify post-stay email features that affect customers’ attitudes and intentions to revisit a hotel brand. PLS-SEM was chosen to test the study hypotheses because it estimates path coefficients in structural models under conditions of non-normality with small sample sizes (Hair et al., 2014; Rezaei and Ghodsi, 2014). The analysis also enables comparisons of path coefficients across groups using multigroup analysis. Additionally, the five constructs of email features are single-factor items, which may cause identification and convergence problems in covariance when SEM is used. However, in PLS-SEM, single-factor items can be analysed without having those problems (Hair et al., 2014).

Results

Measurement model evaluation

The quality of measurement models was assessed for convergent validity with the magnitude of the factor loadings, composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) (Hair et al., 2006). As shown in Table 2, all factor loadings exceeded the recommended value of 0.6 (Chin, 1998) and CR values for constructs exceeded the recommended value of 0.7 (Hair et al., 2006). Discriminant validity among constructs was confirmed by assessing AVEs for each construct and by comparing the squared correlations between the two constructs of interest. The AVEs for all constructs exceeded the recommended level of 0.50, and AVEs for all constructs were greater than their squared correlations, supporting adequate discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981) (Table 3).

Table 2.

Validity and reliability for constructs.

Constructs and items	Loadings	CR	AVE
Attitude (Cronbach’s α = 0.92)		0.92	0.65
Attitude towards the full-service hotel that sent me a post-stay thank you email would be:
Good	0.85
Positive	0.81
Enjoyable	0.79
Favourable	0.86
Fun	0.79
Pleasant	0.72
Revisit intention (Cronbach’s α = 0.88)		0.88	0.71
Likelihood to visit the hotel in the next 12 months	0.77
Intent to visit the hotel in the next 12 months	0.89
Willingness to visit the hotel again in the next 12 months	0.86
Post-stay email features: A single-item construct was used to measure a customer’s level of agreement regarding each email feature that would influence attitude/revisit intention with the hotel
Personalization – A salutation with the name of the recipient, personal loyalty account information, personalized information or statements with a name of a service employee, etc.	1.00	1.00
Interactivity – Links to the hotel website, social media sites, feedback page and so on.	1.00	1.00
Message copy – Textual contents of post-stay emails and their relevancy to the objective of the email.	1.00	1.00
Financial – Special offers, discounts, or promotions that contain monetary value.	1.00	1.00
Illustrations – The use of images or illustration in the email hotel logo and so on.	1.00	1.00

CR: composite reliability; AVE: average variance extracted.

Note: A brief description for each email feature is provided in the questionnaire.

Table 3.

Discriminant validity.

	Personal.	Interact.	Message.	Financial	Illustration	Attitude	Intention
Personal.	1.00
Interact.	0.48	1.00
Message.	0.40	0.39	1.00
Financial	0.32	0.17	0.13	1.00
Illustration	0.46	0.54	0.41	0.34	1.00
Attitude	0.54	0.52	0.38	0.37	0.51	0.80
Intention	0.29	0.52	0.32	0.26	0.45	0.57	0.84

AVE: average variance extracted.

Note: The square root AVE of every multi-item construct is shown on the main diagonal. Five email features (i.e. personalization, interactivity, message, financial, and illustration) are single-item constructs.

Hypotheses testing

SmartPLS version 3.2 was used to test direct and indirect relationships among variables and compared hypothesized paths within high and low leisure involvement groups. This study divided the sample into two different groups based on the 10-item leisure involvement score. The mean split score was 5.67, resulting in the high leisure involvement group (≥5.67) and the low leisure involvement group (<5.67). The demographic information for both groups is shown in Table 4. Figure 3 shows the results of the hypotheses testing. The corrected R² indicated the explanatory power of the predictor variable on each construct. Five email features explained 45.1% of attitude towards a hotel brand (R² = 0.451) and attitude towards a hotel brand explained 23.2% of revisit intention (R² = 0.232) for the low leisure involvement group. For the high leisure involvement group, five email features explained 34.1% of attitude towards a hotel brand (R² = 0.341) and attitude towards a hotel brand explained 17.8% of revisit intention (R² = 0.178). For the low leisure involvement group, the financial (Γ = 0.399, t = 3.364, p = 0.001) feature was found to have a significant effect on attitude. For the high leisure involvement group, the personalization feature showed a significant effect on attitude towards the hotel brand (Γ = 0.319, t = 1.957, p = 0.050). The moderating effect of the leisure involvement level between the financial feature and attitude was significant (Δθ = 0.415 at p= 0.002), and the effect was stronger for the low leisure involvement group (Γ = 0.399, t = 3.364, p = 0.001) than the high leisure involvement group (Γ = −0.026, t = 0.278, p = 0.781). For hypothesis 2, the effect of attitude on revisit intention was significant for both groups at p = 0.001 (low leisure involvement group: β = 0.481, t = 5.929, high leisure involvement group: β = 0.422, t = 4.248).

Table 4.

Demographic information for high and low leisure involvement groups.

Demographics (N = 153)	High involvement		Low involvement
Demographics (N = 153)	Frequency	%	Frequency	%
Gender
Female	62	56.9	47	43.1
Male	26	59.1	18	40.9
Income
<$24,999	39	50.6	38	49.4
$25,000 to $49,999	22	55.0	18	45.0
$50,000 to $99,999	16	80.0	4	20.0
$100,000 or more	11	68.8	5	31.3
Education
High school graduate	5	45.5	6	54.5
Some college	35	53.8	30	46.2
College graduate	28	57.1	21	42.9
Post-graduate	16	69.6	7	30.4
Other	4	80.0	1	20.0
Age
20–29	47	51.6	44	48.4
30–39	15	60.0	10	40.0
40–49	16	69.6	7	30.4
Above 50	10	71.4	4	28.6

Figure 3.

Results of hypotheses. Note: Standardized path coefficients for high leisure involvement group appear outside parentheses, while low involvement group appear within parentheses; **p < 0.001; *p < 0.05.

The mediating effect of attitude between post-stay email features and revisit intention was tested with bootstrapping methods. The result showed that the effect of the financial feature on intention was mediated by attitude for the low leisure involvement group (β = 0.187, p = 0.001). Table 5 and Figure 3 provide the results of hypotheses testing.

Table 5.

Results of hypothesis testing: Hypotheses 1–3.

Paths	High group (n = 88)	Low group (n = 65)	Moderating effects of involvement
Paths	Standardized coefficients (t-value)	Standardized coefficients (t-value)	Path coefficient difference
H1a: Personalization → Attitude	0.32 (1.957)*	0.15 (1.530)	0.173
H1b: Message copy → Attitude	−0.02 (0.142)	0.18 (1.480)	0.196
H1c: Interactivity → Attitude	0.15 (0.995)	0.20 (1.619)	0.114
H1d: Financial → Attitude	−0.03 (0.278)	0.39 (3.999)**	0.415*
H1e: Illustration → Attitude	0.21 (1.298)	0.10 (0.712)	0.114
H2: Attitude → Intention	0.42 (4.248)**	0.48 (5.929)**	0.059
H3: Mediating effect of attitude (indirect effect)
Personalization → Intention	0.135 (1.768)	0.070 (1.445)
Message copy → Intention	−0.007 (0.132)	0.086 (1.462)
Interactivity → Intention	0.062 (0.844)	0.097 (1.414)
Financial → Intention	−0.011 (0.256)	0.187 (3.398)*
Illustration → Intention	0.090 (1.186)	0.048 (0.680)

**p < 0.001; *p < 0.05.

Discussion and implications

Using the SOR model, this study identified post-stay email features that can be effectively positioned to alter customer’s attitudinal and behavioural changes. It is noteworthy that two of the five post-stay email features – personalization and financial features – were significant predictors of attitude towards a hotel brand for either the high or the low involvement group. The findings revealed important managerial implications for the industry. Firstly, the results showed that attitudes of customers with a low level of leisure involvement tended to be influenced by financial features, while personalization features resulted in favourable attitudes among customers with the high leisure involvement. The results further confirmed that attitude was a significant predictor of revisit intention to the hotel brand for both groups. The study results shed light on effective ways to design post-stay emails as a customer retention technique. Considering the limited literature regarding this topic, the theoretical model proposed in the study was a worthwhile attempt to identify the effectiveness of post-stay emails.

The effectiveness of post-stay emails

A post-stay email requires a relatively lower cost and shorter time than other types of marketing efforts, and the expected outcome can be very cost-effective if the company knows how to add value to the email. The results implied that post-stay emails can be utilized to develop positive attitudes towards a hotel brand. The findings also revealed that attitude had a positive and significant impact on customers’ revisit intention. Although more than 50% of hotels do not send post-stay emails (Gaggoioli, 2017), the results showed that post-stay emails can be an effective customer retention tool. However, among the five post-stay email features analysed in the study, some features were found to be more effective in changing customers’ attitude than others. In addition, some post-stay email features did not lead to a positive action affecting customer retention. In the following section, several suggestions are made to hotel operators based on the results of this study.

Personalization

Among the five post-stay email features, personalization had the strongest effect on attitude towards a hotel brand and revisit intention for the high leisure involvement group. The results were in line with findings by Crosby et al. (1990) and Zviran et al. (2006), implying that personalized marketing messages have positive impacts on customer satisfaction and intention to comply. Especially, the results indicated the varying influence on customers' attitudes depending on customers' involvement levels. The results were consistent with Josiam et al (2005), Oreg and Sverdlik, (2014) and San Martín et al. (2011)’s studies, supporting that highly involved customers showed positive attitudinal or behavioural changes, whereas low-involvement customers showed no significant change in their attitude/intention to comply with the subject. Other than personalization and financial features, other features were found to have nonsignificant effects on attitude. As there is a lack of literature on the topic of post-stay emails, this finding highlights the importance of personalization in email marketing. As Huang and Shyu (2009) mentioned, the use of standardized or system-generated statements in post-stay emails may not work effectively to impress guests. Rather, companies can include a salutation with the name of the guest and the name of the service employee with the person’s contact information to make it more personalized; therefore, guests do not feel that it is generic or impersonal. Including contact information to enable customers to reach out to the service employee adds credibility to the email. Personalization can build customer loyalty with the brand as revisit intention is frequently used as an indicator of customers’ behavioural loyalty (Tanford, 2016). Therefore, operators should note that personalization feature in post-stay emails may help cultivating relationships with customers and building loyalty. The use of the property management system also helps operators incorporate information from guests’ previous stays or preferences into the email contents. Additionally, companies can analyse customers’ tendencies for reading emails and clicking the links in the email. In doing so, companies can create more targeted and personalized emails, which can result in increased revisit intention and loyalty with the brand.

Message copy

The message copy feature was found to have no significant impact on customer attitude towards a hotel brand. In particular, for the high leisure involvement group, this feature was found to have a negative impact on attitude. In other words, the impact of the feature diminishes as companies include more text in the email. This indicates that guests may have less interest in reading text messages in the emails and prefer simplified messages. The results were consistent with findings by Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty (2012), implying that marketing messages should be brief and concise to elicit an immediate response. To increase its effectiveness, it could be more important for readers that the message aligns with the email’s subject and headline. Therefore, the choice of subject is important (Lewis et al., 2013). Most importantly, the main objective of post-stay emails is different than other promotional emails as it focuses on thanking the customers for their stay and building relationships with customers to increase their revisit intentions. Therefore, hotel operators need to design post-stay emails to deliver a quick and easy-to-read thank you message while including other features that can better motivate customers to return.

Interactivity

The interactivity feature was identified to have no significant effect on the high and low leisure involvement groups’ attitude towards a hotel brand and their revisit intention. This was inconsistent with the study findings by Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty (2012) and Gaggioli (2017), suggesting that companies can encourage customers to connect with the company or leave a review regarding their stays by including direct links to the company’s feedback site or social media webpages in the email. This could be because many companies include the interactivity feature in their emails, social media and companies’ websites, thus this may become an expected factor, which does not influence customer attitude any more. Furthermore, customers may prefer to visit other websites, such as Tripadvisor.com or any online travel agency’s website, to voice their opinions or communicate with the staffs. Also, timing of email could be an issue, as some hotels send a post-stay email immediately, whereas some may take a few days to send the email (Gaggioli, 2017). Companies need to send an email to encourage customers to leave reviews on their websites or social media sites immediately. That way, any concerns or questions can be addressed for their stays, giving companies the opportunity to interact with customers. Reviews on social media sites are publicly available to other potential guests, which can influence their attitude to the brand and intention to visit the property (Zhong et al., 2014).

Financial

The financial feature in post-stay emails was found to be the most effective feature in developing the low leisure involvement group’s positive attitude that eventually contributes to customers’ revisit intention. This result was in line with findings by Hsin et al. (2013), indicating that financial incentives increase customer perceived value in reading the email. The result was in the same vein with the findings from previous studies, indicating that financial features lead to positive attitudes towards the brand (Reichhart et al., 2013) and increase purchase intention (Hanaysha, 2017). This finding demonstrates that providing financial benefits may be an essential prerequisite for the low leisure involvement group’s attitude and revisit intention. The low leisure involvement group’s average hotel loyalty program experience was <1 year, whereas the high leisure involvement group had slightly more than 2 years of experience. Therefore, customers who are new to the loyalty program may react to immediate financial benefits (i.e. coupons and discounts), whereas customers who are in the loyalty program longer may be more interested in long-term and psychological benefits (i.e. personalization of services).

Illustration

The illustration feature in post-stay emails was not an influential factor for either involvement groups in inducing positive attitudes towards a hotel brand. This finding is interesting, as one previous study indicated that pictures or images are utilized in over 90% of emails (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). Additionally, this finding was inconsistent with the findings by Simester et al. (2009) and Lewis et al. (2013), indicating the positive effects of illustrations on email marketing and relationship building with customers. As illustrations are frequently used in emails from many retail and hospitality companies, it is possible that customers are not impressed by the use of illustrations in the emails. However, as Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty (2012) indicated, the use of too many or too few illustrations may have a negative marketing effect, thus companies need to optimally use illustrations in post-stay emails.

Involvement and customer segmentation

This study confirms that involvement levels can be utilized to segment customers and to form different marketing strategies to attract certain customer segment. The results indicated the varying influence on customers’ attitudes depending on customers' involvement levels. In this study, about 57.5% of the participants were found to be highly involved with the leisure hotel selection. The high leisure involvement group was categorized to be highly educated, older, wealthier and enrolled in hotel loyalty program longer than the low leisure involvement group. As indicated by the study results, hotel operators may need to focus more on personalizing the email to effectively target the high leisure involvement group. On the other hand, the use of financial feature was found to be effective to appeal to the low leisure involvement group. Therefore, industry professionals and researchers can utilize this study to increase the effectiveness of post-stay emails and target different customer segments for a better targeted customer retention strategy. This study also suggests the use of the involvement construct to increase the effectiveness of hotel email marketing.

Future research and limitations

The five post-email features in the proposed model were selected based on previous study findings. However, there may be more post-stay email features that can be incorporated into the model. Future studies can identify post-stay email features that are used in this study and investigate the effectiveness of each feature with more diversified customer segments. Another limitation of this study is the sampling method. The data were collected through Facebook, FlyerTalk and a university’s educational portal in an online survey format. As a result, most respondents were female and under 30 years old. Therefore, future studies can utilize other data collection methods to elicit a larger sample size. In addition, future research can utilize a focus group to examine the differences among genders, generations and other demographic factors like ethnicity and marital status. The utilization of an eye tracking method is also recommended to define a heat map of eye movement on the email template.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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