Branded emails at every step of the trip

Why every booking needs a sequence, not a single email

Between booking and departure, a traveller usually has the same few questions: did my booking go through, when is the balance due, where do I meet you, and what should I bring. When those answers arrive on time, your inbox stays quiet. When they do not, the same questions arrive by email, phone and message, often the week before departure when you are busiest.

Tourtify sends each answer at the moment it is needed. Beyond the confirmation, reminders and review request, there is a Booking changed email when you change a booking's date or travellers, with the new details and any balance or credit, and a Payment received receipt when a balance or later payment arrives, whether paid online or recorded by your team.

Worked example: the emails on one trek booking

A traveller books a 14-day trek departing 15 October and pays a deposit, with the balance due on 16 August. They receive the confirmation with its PDF at once. Balance reminders go out 7 days and 1 day before the due date, on 9 and 15 August, each with a secure link to pay; reminders stop once the booking is fully paid. When they pay, the Payment received email confirms what is left to pay.

Two days before departure, the default, the trip reminder arrives on 13 October with the date, time and what to prepare. The trek ends on 28 October, and the review request follows a day later, on 29 October. If they do not review, one reminder follows.

Your team, meanwhile, gets a New booking alert on the day they booked. Every email sent is listed in the booking's activity, so if the traveller says they never received the confirmation, you can see when it went and resend it.

Writing your own message

Each email can carry an optional line in your own words near the top. Keep it short and specific to the email: a welcome on the confirmation, a reminder about boots and a sleeping bag on the trip reminder, a personal thank-you on the review request. The details, links and PDF are added for you, so your message does not need to repeat them.

Logo, brand colour, contact details and sign-off come from your business details. Set those first, and make sure there is a contact email: without one, travellers' replies cannot reach you. Preview each email with sample data and send yourself a test before relying on it.

Turning emails off, and what to keep

Any of the configurable emails can be turned off without affecting the others. Turn one off when you genuinely send the same information another way, for example if your guides phone every traveller two days before departure. If the timing is the problem rather than the email, change the timing instead: the trip reminder can go out more days before departure, and the review request more days after the trip.

Some messages are transactional and always sent, such as the updates on a payment by a local method that is still processing, has failed, or completed after the seats were taken. Travellers need those to know where their money is.

Common mistakes to avoid

Writing a long personal message that pushes the booking details below the fold on a phone. Forgetting to update the trip reminder message when your meeting point moves. And sending from a generic address when you could send from your own domain with the Own email server (SMTP) plugin, or reach travellers who opt in on WhatsApp with the WhatsApp notifications plugin.