HOSPITALITY & TRAVEL SMS COMPLIANCE

// Course Guide

Who this course is for

• Hotel and resort marketing and revenue teams
• Guest services and front office managers
• Loyalty program managers
• Travel agencies and tour operators

Why texting compliance is different for hotels, resorts and travel brands

Hospitality brands text guests before arrival, during their stay and long after checkout. Reservation confirmations and check-in instructions are informational, while upgrade offers, loyalty promotions and post-stay rebooking campaigns are marketing. Bookings that arrive through online travel agencies often carry no direct consent at all, and international guests bring foreign privacy rules into play. Multi-property groups must also coordinate registrations and suppression across brands.

What each module covers

1. TCPA Foundations for Hospitality. The TCPA as it applies to hotels, resorts and travel brands: consent tiers, autodialer rules after Facebook v. Duguid, Do Not Call obligations, statutory damages and recent case law.
2. TCR Registration. 10DLC registration for hotels, resorts and travel brands: brand and campaign structure, use case selection, vetting, and keeping registrations accurate as the business changes.
3. Guest Consent Management. How to capture, scope and document consent for hotels, resorts and travel brands: express versus express written consent, disclosure language, recordkeeping and consent that survives a challenge.
4. Message Classification. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: classifying messages as informational, transactional, conversational or marketing, and why the classification decides which consent and which campaign apply.
5. Contamination Prevention. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: preventing contamination: keeping marketing content out of informational and transactional messages so consent and registrations stay valid.
6. Opt-Out Management. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: processing STOP and other opt-outs across every system, honoring revocation by any reasonable means, and keeping internal and national DNC lists synchronized.
7. Loyalty Program Compliance. Designing a compliance program for hotels, resorts and travel brands: policies, roles, training, controls and the review cycle that keeps messaging compliant as it grows.
8. OTA & Third-Party Channel Risk. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: managing vendors and platforms that send or store data on your behalf: due diligence, contracts, audit rights, suppression syncing and liability allocation.
9. International Compliance. Industry and jurisdiction-specific rules that apply on top of the TCPA for hotels, resorts and travel brands, with practical guidance on how they change message design and consent.
10. Multi-Property Operations. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: running compliance across multiple locations, brands or teams: centralized controls, shared suppression, registration structures and local accountability.
11. Audit & Records Management. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: building the evidence trail: consent logs, message archives, monitoring dashboards and the records regulators, carriers and plaintiffs request.
12. Litigation Defense Strategies. For hotels, resorts and travel brands: responding to complaints, demand letters, class actions and regulator inquiries: preserving evidence, common defenses and settlement considerations.
13. Final Certification Exam. A proctored final assessment covering every module, with scenario questions drawn from real hotels, resorts and travel brands situations. Passing earns the course certificate.

The problem this course prevents

A resort group texts a spring promotion to every phone number in its PMS, including guests who booked through an OTA and never consented to marketing and international guests subject to different rules. The course covers OTA channel risk, guest consent capture at booking and check-in, and international considerations.

Course FAQ

Can we text guests who booked through an OTA?

Transactional messages about the stay may be appropriate depending on how the number was obtained, but marketing requires your own consent. The OTA module covers this in detail.

Does the course cover international guests?

Yes. The international compliance module covers foreign numbers and privacy regimes that apply to guests from outside the US.

Is the course self-paced?

Yes. Hospitality & Travel SMS Compliance runs about 20 hours across 13 modules, including the final exam, and you can work through it at your own pace with lifetime access to updates.

Is this course legal advice?

No. It teaches the rules, carrier requirements and operational controls that apply to hotels, resorts and travel brands, but it is not a substitute for advice from qualified counsel on your specific program.