The average hotel loyalty email campaign achieves an open rate of 18–22%. On a list of 5,000 members, that's 900–1,100 opens. Of those, maybe 3–5% click through. That's 27–55 guests who actually see your offer.
The average WhatsApp message sent to an opted-in list achieves a read rate of 97–98%. The same 5,000-member list produces 4,850–4,900 reads. Click-through on WhatsApp loyalty messages runs at 35–45%.
The numbers are not close. WhatsApp is not marginally better. It is categorically different — the difference between speaking to your guests and sending a message that most of them will never open.
Why hotels still default to email
Email is familiar. The tooling is well understood. Most loyalty platforms were built around email as the primary channel. Switching requires new infrastructure and, in most markets, re-consent from members.
The operational overhead of WhatsApp has historically been high: managing conversations, routing replies, avoiding spam classifications. Business API access required scale and technical sophistication that most independent hotels don't have.
LoyoraPay handles all of this at the platform level. WhatsApp Business API, consent capture, message templating, and reply routing are built in. The hotel team writes the campaign; the platform handles delivery, compliance, and reply management.