Automated guest messaging solves a real problem for vacation rental managers, short-term rental hosts, and hoteliers: nobody should have to manually send check-in instructions two hundred times a month. Guest messaging software has become essential for scaling hospitality operations — but guest communication automation has a blind spot: timing.
A booking confirmed at 2:47 AM used to mean a welcome message at 2:47 AM. A pre-departure reminder scheduled “the evening before” could land in the middle of dinner or the middle of the night, depending on when the system got around to it. The content was right; the moment was wrong. And guests notice the difference between a message that feels considered and one that feels like a machine firing on a trigger.
With UpMarket‘s new template timing, that blind spot is gone. You now control exactly when every automated guest message is sent — booking confirmations, pre-arrival messages, check-in instructions, and departure reminders — across your entire short-term rental or hotel portfolio.
Set the send time for automated messages — once, for everything
You can now define the time of day each of your automated message templates goes out — a level of guest message scheduling control that used to require manual workarounds. Want arrival instructions to land at 10:00 the day before check-in? Pre-departure reminders at 18:00? Set it once in your property management system and the message scheduling applies across all your properties.
No per-property configuration, no spreadsheets tracking which guest message goes when. One setting, applied everywhere in your messaging automation.
Local time zones, handled automatically
If your multi-property portfolio spans time zones — mainland Spain and the Canary Islands, or vacation rentals and holiday homes across countries — the send time applies in each property’s local time. A 10:00 message means 10:00 for the guest, wherever the property is. You configure the intent; UpMarket’s hospitality automation handles the clocks.
How to configure your template timing
Step 1 — Open your templates. In UpMarket, go to your Automated Guest Message section, where you’ll see the list of messages sent to guests throughout their journey (booking confirmation, arrival instructions, pre-departure reminder, and so on).
Step 2 — Pick a template and set its send time. – And you’re done! Open the template you want to adjust and select the time of day it should be sent using the new time selector. Once you have picked the time, the template is configured and will be sent at the selected time.
How to schedule your check-in templates
Check-in templates are their own category. Because they’re tied to each reservation’s arrival date, you don’t set an exact time of day for them — instead, you choose how many days before check-in they should be sent, up to a maximum of 7 days.
Step 1 — Open your check-in template. In the same Check-In Configuration section, open the check-in template you want to configure.
Step 2 — Choose how many days before arrival it goes out. Select the number of days before check-in the message should be sent — anywhere from 1 to 7 days ahead. Want arrival instructions to go out three days early so guests can plan their journey, or just one day before so the door code is fresh? Pick the offset that fits each message.
Step 3 — Save, and it applies to every reservation. From then on, every booking gets its check-in message the right number of days before arrival — automatically, with no per-reservation work.
💡 Tip: Think about the guest’s day, not yours. Pre-departure reminders work best in the early evening, when guests are back at the property and can actually act on them. For check-in templates, 2–3 days before arrival tends to hit the sweet spot — early enough for guests to plan their journey, close enough that the details stay top of mind.
Why message timing matters for guest experience
Message timing is one of those guest communication details travelers never compliment but always feel. Automated check-in instructions that arrive at a sensible hour get read, not buried under a night’s worth of notifications. Reminders that respect the guest’s evening feel like hospitality rather than system output. And your team stops fielding the classic “I got a message from you at 4 AM?” remark.
Well-timed messages don’t just improve the guest experience — they get opened, which means fewer repeated questions, smoother self check-in, higher guest satisfaction, and better reviews on booking platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com.
Combined with your Virtual Concierge and online check-in flow, template timing is another step toward automated guest communication that runs itself — hospitality automation that reads like a human planned it.
Available now in your template settings
The template timing feature is live now in your UpMarket guest messaging settings. Set your send times once, and let every automated guest message — from booking confirmation to pre-departure reminder — land when it should. Want to see UpMarket’s guest communication automation in action first? Book a demo.
