Where Should Your Hotel's Email Live?

Your hotel's [email protected] address is not a minor technical detail. It is the first reservation confirmation your guest receives; it's the address Booking.com and Expedia use to verify ownership; it's the email Google Business Profile asks for when you prove you own that listing. In other words, your business email is your hotel's digital ID card.

That is why the right question to ask is not just "free or paid". The right questions are: does this provider deliver to inbox reliably, can my staff connect from desktop and mobile mail apps via IMAP/SMTP, will third-party tools we adopt later integrate without friction.

For years Zoho Mail was the small-business favorite for free custom-domain email. Recently Zoho began closing major features on its free plan. Free-plan users can no longer connect via IMAP, POP or SMTP from desktop and mobile mail clients. If you want to read mail through Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or the iPhone's native Mail app, you must move to a paid tier.

For hospitality this is a hard blocker. Front desk teams don't read mail in a browser tab; they get push notifications on the iPhone Mail app. The owner answers urgent guest messages from an iPad while traveling. Third-party booking tools send mail over SMTP. An email service without IMAP/SMTP is a service that breaks the hotel workflow.

You essentially have two clean paths forward.

At Hotel WD, for customers who want their digital reputation and operational continuity at the highest tier, we openly recommend Google Workspace (formerly G Suite).

Why?

Cost. Google Workspace is billed per user per month. For a small boutique hotel a 5–10 user Business Starter subscription costs less than a single shift of front-desk labour. It is a sensible investment for professional operations.

For hotels with tight budgets or those who do not want to add another subscription line, our current pick is Lark Suite. Built by ByteDance, it fills the gap Zoho left behind, and then some:

Things to be aware of. Lark is not as widely recognised as Google in Western markets, which can subtly affect perceived corporate weight. And "free" plans evolve over time — Zoho is the textbook example. So if you choose Lark, set a recovery email, and as your hotel grows keep a paid-plan or Google Workspace migration in your back pocket.

To bind [email protected] to Lark Suite, follow the steps below. Because Hotel WD already runs your site through Cloudflare, the DNS section is managed entirely from one panel.

Step 1 · Open a Lark Suite Account

Step 2 · Add Your Custom Domain

- MX records — where inbound mail to your domain should be routed

- TXT (SPF) — declares Lark is allowed to send on your behalf

- TXT (DKIM) — every outbound message is cryptographically signed

- TXT (DMARC) — policy for what to do with unauthenticated mail claiming to be from your domain

Step 3 · Cloudflare DNS Records

In Cloudflare, open your domain and go to the DNS tab. Delete every existing MX record from your previous mail provider — multiple MX hosts in conflict will lose mail. Then add the records Lark gave you, one by one:

Type   Name                   Content                                    Priority
MX     @                      mx1.larksuite.com                          5
MX     @                      mx2.larksuite.com                          10

Type   Name                   Content
TXT    @                      v=spf1 include:larksuite.com ~all
TXT    larkmail._domainkey    [the long DKIM string from the Lark panel]
TXT    _dmarc                 v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]

Cloudflare propagates DNS changes within a few minutes. Back in the Lark Admin Console, click "Verify" and wait until all four records turn green.

Step 4 · Create Users and Connect Mail Apps

Our straight advice:

If budget allows, Google Workspace is the cleaner primary choice. But what Lark Suite offers as a free plan in 2026 is a quality of corporate mail we could not have imagined five years ago. Hotels that stayed on Zoho's free plan for years tell us the same thing once they migrate: "why didn't we do this earlier?"

Email migration ultimately means changing DNS records. Your existing emails do not automatically move to the new service. Before flipping DNS, download every old mailbox to your own machine using an IMAP backup tool such as Mail Backup X or MailStore Home.

Next, watch your existing service's billing cycle. If you stayed on Zoho's free plan, your account simply continues; but if you have a paid subscription, cancel auto-renewal before it bills the next term.

Tools change in digital. Five years ago Zoho was the standard for free custom-domain email; today it has closed IMAP/SMTP. Five years from now, Lark's free tier may shift too. The strongest advice we can give Hotel WD customers is this: chase principles, not tools.

The principles: your hotel's business email should run on your own domain, IMAP/SMTP must stay open, DNS records (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC) should be set correctly, and the underlying provider should have strong deliverability. As long as those principles hold — whether Google Workspace or Lark Suite — your [email protected] arrives in your guest's inbox at the speed of light, and OTAs accept it as a valid corporate address.

At Hotel WD we will keep sharing every credible new tool that strengthens your operational backbone. If you get stuck on a DNS record, write to support — we will set up all four records together in your Cloudflare panel.

AUTHOR

Tahir Dinç

Turkey•27+ YEARS EXP

I have been working in the digital field since 1999. I still hold the position of Digital Marketing Manager at Türk SEM. I have also been involved in tourism-related activities since 2005.

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Hotel WD·Strategy Team