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Selling to hotels and travel brands: 423 human replies on 52,955 emails in our 2026 campaigns, who buys, what worked, prices.
By Moe Alhosni · Published 31 October 2026 · 7 min read
Short answer: B2B lead generation for hospitality means booking meetings between companies that sell to hotels, resorts and travel brands (agencies, technology vendors, suppliers) and the owners, general managers and marketing or commercial directors who buy. It is the industry where we have the most data: our 2026 hotel and travel campaigns drew 423 human replies on 52,955 emails sent, 0.80% per email, and P1 Communications, a UK hospitality PR agency, got 20+ qualified meetings. Our pricing is per qualified meeting that took place.
I'm Moe Alhosni, founder of ROI Maximizer. Most of what I know about selling to hotels comes from running P1 Communications' outbound, which writes to hotel and travel brands across Europe, Turkey, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. This page is for companies selling to hospitality. A hotel trying to win corporate group bookings is a different job, covered briefly at the end.
| Buyer | Where | What they buy |
|---|---|---|
| Owner or managing director | Independent and boutique hotels, small groups | Almost everything above a modest spend |
| General manager | Individual properties, including branded ones | Local services, some technology, PR and marketing within a budget |
| Director of sales and marketing, commercial director | Hotels and groups | PR, digital marketing, distribution, revenue tools |
| Head of marketing or brand | Hotel groups, tour operators, destination brands | Agencies, campaigns, content |
| Revenue manager | Hotels and groups | Pricing, channel and revenue software |
| Operations or procurement director | Groups and chains | Supplies, linen, food and beverage, maintenance contracts |
Independents decide quickly and often with one person. Branded hotels can buy some things locally, but technology and supplier contracts are frequently set by the brand or management company. Find out early which decisions sit at property level for the type of hotel you target.
Naming the outcome the reader wants. Most of the hotel campaigns' positive replies came off subject lines naming a travel outlet the client pitches to, with a body offering to get the prospect covered there (cold email reply rates by industry). A hotelier understands "coverage in a named travel title" instantly. Translate your offer into an outcome that concrete.
Longer sequences. The hotel sequences ran seven or eight emails. Per email sent, the reply rate fell from 1.12% on the first email to around 0.7% by follow-ups 3 to 5, then 0.42% at follow-up 6. The first email produced only about a quarter of replies. Hoteliers are busy in season, and a reply often comes on the fourth or fifth touch.
Testing the opener. On the largest campaign, three variants of the first email ran on the same list. The best drew 1.34% per email sent and the worst 0.79%, with both subject line and body different (cold email statistics).
These are human replies of any sentiment, including no, from 2026 step data pulled on 13 October 2026.
| Campaign region | Steps | Emails sent | Human replies | Per email sent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe and Turkey | 7 | 46,201 | 360 | 0.78% |
| Caribbean | 7 | 2,196 | 22 (under 30, read with care) | 1.00% |
| Indian Ocean | 8 | 4,558 | 41 | 0.90% |
| All hotel and travel campaigns | 52,955 | 423 | 0.80% |
Counted per contact, that is 4.4 human replies per 100 hotel contacts. Against the one US employment-brand campaign in the same dataset, hotels replied 2.5 times as often per email sent. Each industry was one client, one offer and one list, so do not read that as a law about hotels.
On what interested hoteliers asked first, from 397 positive replies read in full: 34% asked for a call, 15% asked the price, 8% asked about scope, 7% for examples and 4% for proof. Price or proof first came to 19%, the lowest of the groups we measured. Hoteliers mostly want to talk.
Across all clients, 245 people at hotels, resorts and travel brands replied positively between August 2025 and July 2026. That is a count of people, not a rate. None of these figures is a meeting count; the one published meeting figure for this sector is P1's below.
Plenty of guesthouses, B&Bs and small inns are run by sole traders or partnerships. In the UK, the ICO's guidance says "Sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals", so the consent rules for individuals apply to them, while limited companies can be emailed at work addresses. Lists across the EU, US and Canada each follow their own rules, set out in is cold email legal. This is general information, not legal advice; check with your compliance team or counsel.
A setup fee, once, of $1,000–$3,000. Then either $200–$500 per qualified meeting that took place, or $5,000 a month flat. Prospects who skip the call are not billed, and there is no minimum term.
For hospitality, the per-meeting price depends mainly on property size and your contract value. Selling a retainer to boutique hotels sits lower; selling group-wide technology to a chain sits higher. Terms in full are in pay per meeting lead generation pricing, and you can model the maths in the cost per meeting calculator.
P1 Communications is a UK hospitality and travel PR agency with 18 years behind it. Founder Vicky Goodall's published result: 20+ qualified meetings, roughly half of which progressed to commercial discussions. In her words, they had tried freelancers, ads and their own outreach before. The details are in the P1 Communications case study. The step data above comes from P1's 2026 programme; it is not the campaign behind the 20+ meetings, and I have no meeting count to attach to it.
Hotels winning corporate accounts, group bookings or events are selling to travel managers, executive assistants, HR teams and event planners. That works by outbound too, but it is a different list and a different message, built around dates, capacity and rates. We have no campaign data for hotels as the sender. Treat this page's numbers as data about hotels as recipients.
In our 2026 campaigns, hotel and travel brands gave 0.80% human replies per email sent (423 on 52,955), or 4.4 per 100 contacts, across three campaigns for one client. Compare only with figures counted the same way: per email sent, auto-replies excluded.
At independents, the owner or managing director. At branded properties, the general manager or director of sales and marketing for local decisions, and the group's marketing or commercial head for anything set centrally.
Our hotel sequences ran seven or eight emails, and follow-ups 3 to 5 still drew about 0.7% per email sent. Follow-up 6 dropped to 0.42%. Six or seven steps was worth it in that market.
Pay $1,000–$3,000 once to set up, then $200–$500 for every qualified meeting that went ahead, or $5,000 a month with no meeting fee. No-shows are free and you can stop at any time.
More on pricing and data sits under guides. To talk through your hospitality offer, book 30 minutes or email moe@roimaxi.com.
About the author: Moe Alhosni, founder of ROI Maximizer. Before that he spent four and a half years in sales at Moody's in London, most recently as Assistant Director, Sales, working with banks, asset managers and private equity firms. He runs the campaigns behind the first-hand data on this site. LinkedIn
After Moody's he was Sales Director at Coinshift, a Web3 treasury management company (2024). Before Moody's he worked at BLOM Bank France in London on settlements and customer service, including AML/KYC record updates. Full career
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