Engaging guests before arrival

How citizenM reduced cancellations by ~70% in April and hit 0% churn the following month with personalized video

Every hotelier knows the pain of last-minute cancellations. For citizenM, roughly 1 in 6 guests were backing out before check-in. Not because the rooms weren’t great. But because they didn’t know what to expect.

With a knack for human-centric hospitality, citizenM saw an opportunity to improve one key moment: the time between booking and arrival. They wanted a way to set clear expectations, spark excitement, and build loyalty before check-in.

So they partnered with SEEN to bring a new pre-arrival experience to life: a personalized video sent days before check-in, welcoming each guest by name, previewing the space, and capturing the brand's signature personality. It set a warm, human tone for their upcoming stay.

From 1 in 6 guests canceling… to 100% show-up rate with the personalized video campaign

The result? Guests who watched their video were 3x more likely to show up. April’s cancellation rate dropped from ~17% baseline to just 5.5% among viewers, and by May and June not a single guest who watched their video canceled.  For citizenM, that meant more rooms filled, more revenue protected, and a stronger emotional connection with every guest.

Here’s how citizenM did it, and why personalized video is quickly becoming the new standard in hospitality engagement.

The challenge: making every stay start before check-in

citizenM wasn’t facing a product problem, they were facing a perception gap. Guests would book rooms but cancel before arrival at higher-than-expected rates, often because what they imagined didn't match the reality they had yet to see. This kind of last-minute churn doesn’t just disrupt revenue forecasts; it also signals that something in the guest journey isn’t resonating.

citizenM hotels are celebrated for bold design and smart use of space, but not every guest understands that “smart” sometimes means “compact.” For first-time visitors expecting a suite, that clever layout could come as a surprise, and that mismatch in expectations was showing up in their NPS scores and cancellation rates. In other words, guests didn’t always know what they were getting – and surprises (no matter how stylish or well-designed) can lead to cold feet.

The marketing team realized the challenge wasn’t the product. It was the expectation gap between booking and arrival. They needed a way to:

✅ Set expectations early (and honestly).

✅ Create anticipation instead of anxiety.

✅ Turn a functional email into a brand moment.

 If guests could see the unique citizenM experience ahead of time – the chic lobby, the cozy yet cleverly designed rooms, the high-tech amenities, and the friendly atmosphere – they’d be more confident in their choice.

The goal was to reduce the “booking regret” and those “cold feet” cancellations by making sure guests felt informed and excited before they ever set foot on the property. So, to make their pre-arrival experience as impactful as the stay itself, citizenM teamed up with Seen.io.

The solution: personalization meets video

citizenM’s answer was to make pre-arrival communications more human and transparent. Working with SEEN, they created a personalized video for each guest scheduled to arrive, highlighting exactly what awaited that guest at citizenM. Using the platform, thousands of personalized pre-arrival videos were created, each tailored to an individual guest.

In a characteristically citizenM cheeky tone, the videos walked each guest through key aspects of their upcoming stay. Each video panned through the room, focusing on its smart layout and amenities. By being upfront in a fun, engaging way, the campaign turned what could have been potential disappointment (for example, if someone expected a huge suite and instead got citizenM’s carefully designed and cozy room) into positive anticipation.

Guests were effectively being pre-familiarized with the product they’d bought. Using citizenM’s existing assets and booking data, SEEN’s platform rapidly produced and distributed thousands of unique videos with synthetic speech and on-brand visuals. This is the SEEN advantage: end-to-end technology that activates customer data in video — the most engaging format in marketing — at any scale.‍

Delivery was equally thoughtful. Each guest received an email with a personalized subject line and a link to their video, sent days before arrival. The email also included links to their booking details (so guests could make changes or cancel with a click if needed) and visuals that matched citizenM’s design-forward aesthetics. Time to market was important for this pilot, so the production leveraged existing materials, synthetic speech, and a sleek on brand look and feel.

The A/B test: Rolling out the red carpet (virtually)

To prove impact, citizenM ran a carefully controlled A/B test over several months.

• Initial Pilot (April): The first wave, sent manually in batches, reached about 2,100 guests with upcoming stays. The content was fresh and the concept brand-new, so the team was eager to see how guests would react.
• Expansion (May/June): Encouraged by April’s results, citizenM scaled up for the next phase. They automated daily sends for all direct bookings in May and June to validate the results across a larger audience.

Throughout both phases, the team tracked engagement and cancellations meticulously. By structuring it as a controlled experiment, they ensured that any improvements in guest retention could credibly be attributed to the personalized video campaign and not just normal monthly fluctuations.

This structured approach mirrored Seen.io’s core promise: data + personalization + video = measurable ROI.

The impact: with personalized video, engagement went up, and cancellations down (way down)

From a marketing metrics standpoint, the campaign was a hit right out the gate. Even before we get to the cancellation numbers, the engagement stats made it clear guests were loving the content:

• High Open Rates: The personalized pre-arrival email achieved an open rate of about 77–78% in the initial April batch, nearly double citizenM’s typical email open rate for pre-stay communications. Even as the program scaled, it maintained a healthy ~41% open rate overall across April-June, well above industry benchmarks for hospitality emails.
• Strong Click-Through Rates: Of those who opened the email, an impressive number clicked through to watch their video. The campaign saw roughly a 49% click-through rate (CTR) during the April launch.

These metrics validated Seen.io’s thesis: when you activate data in video, engagement follows.

Cancellation reduction: personalized video helped citizenM cut cancellations by 3x and achieve zero churn among engaged guests

The real story was in what happened next: guest behavior. April’s overall cancellation rate was around 17%. Among guests who clicked their personalized video? Just 5.5% canceled. That’s nearly a threefold difference.

• Dramatic Drop in Cancellation Rate: Guests who watched their personalized video were far less likely to cancel their stay. Among those who clicked through and viewed the video, the cancellation rate was only ~5.5%. That’s about one in eighteen reservations. Compare that to the baseline ~17% cancellation rate in similar periods for guests who didn’t get the video (roughly 1 in 6 canceling). In other words, the video viewers’ cancellation rate was around one-third of the normal rate – effectively a ~67% reduction in churn! This difference is huge in hospitality, where even a few percentage points improvement in cancellations can make a big revenue impact.
• Consistent Impact on Churn: This wasn’t a one-month fluke. The trend held steady across the test. In fact, during the later phase of the pilot, virtually none of the guests who engaged with their video ended up cancelling. In May/June’s cohort, 0% of video viewers canceled their booking (and only a single cancellation even among those who only opened the email without clicking). This consistency gave citizenM confidence that the personalized video campaign was truly influencing guest behavior, not just coinciding with it.

This ~70% drop in churn proved that emotionally intelligent communication doesn’t just inspire; it converts. Guests felt the difference, too. One guest said, “This made me feel like my trip had already started.” Another noted, “It’s the first hotel email I’ve ever watched all the way through.”

Why It worked: human-centric communication for the win

At its core, this case study is a testament to the power of human-centric, emotionally intelligent communication. Rather than blasting customers with generic upsells or leaving them in the dark until check-in, citizenM’s approach was to treat guests as real people, with concerns and feelings, who appreciate honesty and a personal touch.

By employing personalized video, they managed to speak to each guest one-to-one at scale – a rarity in hospitality pre-stay engagement. Several factors drove the success:

✔ Expectation Setting (Without the “Hard Sell”): The videos weren’t about pushing a promo or asking anything of the guest; they were purely there to inform and reassure. This builds trust. 

✔ Emotional Engagement: Personalized video created a sense of care and connection. Seeing your own name and booking details, delivered by a cheerful narrator or a clever animation, creates an emotional bond.

✔ Post-Booking Customer Experience as Part of the Product: citizenM effectively treated the time between booking and arrival as an extension of the guest experience. By doing so, they kept guests engaged and mentally connected to the brand.

✔ Personalization at Scale with Tech: SEEN enabled thousands of unique videos without heavy production (pulling in guest names, reservation details, etc.). This is 1:1 communication at scale, the holy grail for modern marketers. And for citizenM’s team, the process was streamlined and automated after the initial creative was set.

By meeting guests with meaningful communication, citizenM turned a moment of inbox fatigue into a lasting impression, where guests felt seen, and, in turn, became emotionally invested.

More trust, less churn – A big win for citizenM

By the end of the test, citizenM had solid proof that personalized pre-arrival videos delivered ROI: they dropped cancellations to 0 and dramatically boosted engagement. For a hospitality brand, that kind of improvement directly impacts occupancy, revenue, and guest satisfaction.

The broader lesson? When brands humanize their communication, customers respond. As citizenM looks to expand this approach across more properties and test additional content variations, one thing is clear: when you make people feel seen and secure, they don’t just keep their bookings; they arrive excited, confident, and loyal. And that’s a result any marketer, or hotelier, can be proud of.

At SEEN, we help hospitality marketers deliver these moments at scale, so every stay starts with something unforgettable.