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Sending the right message at the right time is key to a great guest experience — but doing it manually for every booking takes a lot of time. With Nowistay's automated guest emails, you can set up messages that send automatically when a booking is confirmed, before check-in, or at check-out.
You can generate templates with AI in seconds, personalize them with dynamic variables (like the guest's name, check-in time, or your welcome guide link), add conditions to target the right guests, preview exactly what they'll receive, and monitor every email from a single dashboard.
Even better, you can create multilingual versions of each template so your guests receive the message in their own language — with automatic fallback to the default language when needed.
This guide walks you through everything, step by step.
To use automated guest emails, you'll need:
If you haven't connected your property yet, check our guide on how to create your first property.
You can also go directly to app.nowistay.com/hub/automations.
On the Guest Messages row, you'll see a property selector. Click it to choose which properties should have automated emails enabled.
Only properties connected through the Nowistay PMS method appear in this list. If a property is missing, make sure it's synced via the PMS integration.
On the Guest Messages row, click the message icon (the speech bubble icon). This opens the "Guest Message Templates" panel where you create and manage all your email templates.
If this is your first time, you'll see a message: "No message templates yet — Add templates to automatically send messages to your guests at key moments."
You have two options to get started:
If you haven't created any templates yet, click the "Generate with AI" button. The AI will create a complete set of email templates covering your three key moments:
The generated templates are personalized based on your property details, your welcome guide content, and your communication style. Generation usually takes a few seconds.
Once generated, you can edit, reorder, or delete any template. If you want to start fresh, delete all existing templates and the "Generate with AI" button becomes available again.
Click "+ Add message" to open the template editor and build a template from scratch. This is explained in detail in the next step.
Whether you're editing an AI-generated template or creating a new one, the template editor lets you configure everything about your automated email. Here's each field explained:
Choose which properties this template applies to:
This is when the email should be triggered. Pick one:
This controls how many hours before or after the trigger event the email is sent.
The editor shows a live example below the field. For instance: "Example: Check-in on 15/03/26 3:00 PM, message sent on 14/03/26 3:00 PM" (for 24 hours before check-in).
The email subject line your guest will see. You can type plain text or include variables like {{guest_first_name}} or {{property_name}} to personalize it.
Example: "Welcome to {{property_name}}, {{guest_first_name}}!"
The main content of your email. Write your message and use the "Insert variable" button (the { } icon above the text area) to add dynamic placeholders. When the email is sent, each variable is replaced with the real data from the booking.
Variables are dynamic placeholders that get replaced with real booking data when the email is sent. Click the { } Insert variable button to browse them, or type them directly using the {{variable_name}} format.
You can search variables by name using the search field at the top of the variable selector.
{{guest_first_name}} — Guest's first name (e.g., "John"){{guest_last_name}} — Guest's last name (e.g., "Smith"){{guest_full_name}} — Guest's full name (e.g., "John Smith"){{guest_count}} — Number of guests / adults (e.g., "2"){{host_first_name}} — Your first name (e.g., "Sarah"){{host_full_name}} — Your full name (e.g., "Sarah Johnson"){{arrival_date}} — Check-in date in DD/MM/YYYY format (e.g., "15/03/2026"){{departure_date}} — Check-out date (e.g., "18/03/2026"){{number_of_nights}} — Number of nights (e.g., "3"){{arrival_day_name}} — Day of the week of arrival (e.g., "Friday"){{arrival_month_name}} — Month of arrival (e.g., "March"){{check_in_time}} — Check-in time in HH:MM format (e.g., "15:30"){{check_out_time}} — Check-out time (e.g., "10:00"){{property_name}} — Property name (e.g., "Cozy Paris Apartment"){{property_address}} — Full address (e.g., "123 Rue de la Paix, 75000 Paris"){{welcome_guide_url}} — Direct link to the property's welcome guide{{booking_channel}} — Booking platform (e.g., "Airbnb"){{reservation_number}} — Booking reference number{{booking_amount}} — Total amount (e.g., "450.00"){{currency}} — Currency code (e.g., "EUR"){{nuki_code}} — Guest's Nuki keypad code (if you're using a Nuki integration)Below the message body, you'll find the Conditions section. Conditions let you fine-tune exactly which bookings trigger this email. Here's each condition explained:
Filter by the platform the booking came from.
You can select multiple platforms. For example, select both "Airbnb" and "Booking.com" to cover OTA bookings but exclude direct ones.
When to use it: If you send different check-in instructions depending on the platform (for instance, Airbnb guests get a slightly different message than Booking.com guests), create two separate templates with different source platform filters.
Only send the email if the guest is staying at least this many nights.
When to use it: You might want to send a special welcome email with extra tips for long stays (e.g., only for guests staying 7+ nights), or skip a detailed check-in reminder for one-night stays where the email would arrive too late.
Only send the email if the booking has this status. Options:
When to use it: In most cases, you want to keep this set to "Confirmed" so you only message guests with firm reservations. But you could create a specific template for cancelled bookings to send a follow-up or ask for feedback.
If the email is running late (for example, because the booking was imported after the trigger time already passed), this setting controls how late is too late. If the email would be sent more than this many hours after the intended time, it's skipped entirely.
When to use it: If you import a batch of past bookings and don't want guests to receive a "check-in reminder" for a stay that already started 3 days ago, a 24-hour window prevents that from happening.
These let you add custom rules based on specific booking information. Click "Add condition" to create one. Each condition has three parts:
1. Info type — what data to check:
2. Operator — how to check it:
3. Value (only for "Equals" and "Does not equal") — the value to compare against.
If no conditions are set, you'll see: "No conditions — message will always be sent."
Practical examples:
{{nuki_code}} so you don't send an email with an empty code.You can add multiple conditions — all must be met for the email to send. Remove a condition by clicking the X button next to it.
At the bottom of the editor, the Active switch lets you enable or disable a template. When turned off, the template won't trigger for new bookings but is kept so you can reactivate it later.
One of the most powerful features of Nowistay's automated emails is built-in multilingual support. Instead of creating separate templates for each language, you can add language variations directly within a single template. When the email is sent, Nowistay automatically detects the guest's language from their booking profile and sends the matching version.
Each template has a default language — this is the main version you write first (typically the language most of your guests speak). You can then add translations for up to 15 supported languages including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, and Russian.
When a message is scheduled for a guest:
This means you don't need to worry about every language — just add translations for the ones that matter most to your guests, and the default version covers everyone else.
To add a new language to a template:
You can switch between language tabs at any time to edit each version independently. Each language variation has its own subject line and message body, but shares the same trigger event, timing, conditions, and properties.
Don't want to translate manually? Nowistay can translate your template using AI. When editing a language variation:
{{variables}} exactly as they areThe AI translation is smart enough to produce natural, contextually appropriate messages — not word-for-word literal translations. It also handles all dynamic variables correctly, so {{guest_first_name}} or {{property_address}} will still be replaced with the right values when the email is sent.
To remove a language variation you no longer need, switch to that language tab and click the remove button. The default language cannot be removed.
{{variables}}, so they work identically regardless of languageBefore going live, you can preview exactly what your guest will see and even send a real test email.
The preview shows:
The system also checks whether this email would actually be sent for the selected booking. If it wouldn't, you'll see a reason explaining why:
This makes it easy to debug why a particular guest didn't receive an email.
If the email is eligible, you'll see a "Send now" button with a warning: "This will send a real message to the guest through their booking platform."
Click "Send now" and confirm to send the email immediately for that booking. The button changes to "Message sent!" once delivered. This is useful for testing or for manually sending a message to a specific guest.
Back in the templates panel, you have several ways to organize your templates:
Templates are grouped by trigger event (Booking Confirmed in green, Check-in in blue, Check-out in orange). Within each group, drag the handle on the left side of any template to reorder. If multiple templates match a booking, they send in this order.
Each template card has an on/off switch on the right side. Inactive templates appear with a dashed border and muted background so you can easily spot them. Turning a template off keeps it saved — you won't lose your work.
Use the "Filter by property" dropdown at the top of the panel to see only templates that apply to a specific property, or choose "All templates" to see everything.
Click the trash icon on any template card. You'll be asked to confirm: "Are you sure you want to delete this message template?"
Click the clock icon at the bottom-right of the templates panel to open the "Scheduled Messages" view. This shows you every email that's been sent or is waiting to be sent.
Each message shows:
The list loads 20 messages at a time and loads more as you scroll down.
{{guest_first_name}} and {{property_name}} to make the email feel warm, not robotic{{welcome_guide_url}} so your guests have everything they need in one link{{nuki_code}}, and a separate template with "Nuki code does not exist" that gives alternative access instructionsIf you have any questions about setting up your automated emails, our team is here to help.
