Most tour operators treat their email list like an emergency flare—they only use it when sales are down, and they wonder why nobody is looking at the sky. If your open rates have dipped below 20%, you aren't just facing a "technical glitch"; your audience has likely decided that your emails are either predictable, boring, or irrelevant to their current travel cycle.
When I was scaling to $10M, I realized that an inactive email list is a liability that costs you money in platform fees while damaging your sender reputation. If your open rates are tanking, you don't need fancy AI subject line generators. You need to clean the house, change the utility of your content, and stop acting like a discount warehouse.
1. Radical List Hygiene: The 'Sunset' Strategy
The biggest mistake operators make is hoarding contacts. You think a list of 50,000 looks good on a pitch deck, but if 30,000 of them haven't opened an email in two years, they are actively killing your deliverability. Gmail and Outlook see that thousands of people are ignoring you, so they start routing your emails to the "Promotions" tab or, worse, Spam.
You need to implement a sunset policy immediately. Here is the framework I use:
- Identify the Dead Weight: Segment anyone who hasn't opened an email in the last 6 months (or 90 days if you send weekly).
- The Hail Mary: Send one—and only one—email with a subject line like "Should I stop emailing you?" or "Is this goodbye?" Offer a high-value lead magnet or a one-time deep discount to see if they’re still alive.
- The Purge: If they don't open that Hail Mary, delete them. Not Archive. Delete.
Your open rates will instantly jump because you are only sending to people who actually want to hear from you. High engagement signals to inbox providers that you are a high-quality sender, ensuring you actually land in the primary inbox for your active customers.
2. Shift from "Selling" to "Utility"
If every email you send is a variation of "Book 10% off our Sunset Cruise," people will stop opening. Why would they? They already took the cruise, or they aren't in your city right now. To maintain high open rates year-round, your newsletter must provide value that exists independently of a transaction.
We stopped sending "tours for sale" and started sending "insider logistics." For example, if you run food tours in Mexico City, don't just sell the tour. Send an email titled: "3 Street Tacos Spots the Guidebooks Get Wrong (And Where to Go Instead)."
This creates Utility. Even if the reader isn't booking today, they save the email because it's useful. When they are ready to book, or when their friend asks for a recommendation, your brand is the first thing they find in their inbox search history.
3. The "Plain Text" Psychological Reset
If your emails look like a glossy flyer from a corporate travel agency, the brain immediately categorizes them as "Advertising." This triggers "banner blindness." In my experience, some of our highest-converting and most-opened emails were plain text.
Why plain text works for operators:
- It feels personal: It looks like an email from a person (Gonzalo), not a department.
- Faster load times: Image-heavy emails often fail to load on weak mobile data (common for travelers).
- Better deliverability: HTML-heavy templates are more likely to be flagged as "Promotions."
Try sending a short, three-paragraph email from the founder’s name rather than the company name. Ask a question. Make it look like you wrote it from your iPhone while at the harbor or the trailhead. The authenticity is what drives the click.
