A WhatsApp Customer Club for a Tourism Business in Eilat: How to Keep a Guest Who Comes Once a Year
A WhatsApp customer club is the most natural tool for a tourism business in Eilat, because your guest is already there. But a club built for a customer who comes every week does not fit a customer who comes once a year. What does work is three things. Catch the guest during the visit with proper consent. Send one good message before the next season. And let the booking system fill the list on its own.
Why a regular customer club does not work in Eilat
Most of what is written about a WhatsApp customer club assumes a business the customer meets all the time. A hair salon, a neighborhood restaurant or a fitness studio. There the logic is simple. The customer sees a message every week and the club keeps them close. A tourism business in Eilat lives in a different reality. Your guest lives in Rehovot or Haifa. They booked a tube ride with you in the summer, had a great time and drove home. The next time they are relevant at all is months away, when they start planning the next vacation.
That distance between visits changes the whole plan. A weekly message burns out with a customer who will not be back in town for another year. They will block you after the third one, and rightly so. On the other hand, one precise message that lands exactly when they start thinking about the vacation is worth more than fifty messages in between. Exactly where that moment falls in the Eilat year is laid out in the full calendar in when to market a business in Eilat.
Catch the guest during the visit, not after it
The common mistake is trying to build a list after the season. Sitting over a pile of receipts and guessing who was here. The right moment to add a guest to the club is while they are with you. In the website booking, with a consent checkbox. At the counter when they pay. Or on the beach, when they come out of the water happy and ask what time you open tomorrow. In those moments the consent is natural, because they genuinely want to hear from you.
This is how it works for us in practice. In the systems we built for a water sports beach and for vacation villa management, every booking that comes in automatically sends the customer a confirmation on WhatsApp. The conversation is already open and the number is already in the system. The booking flow includes a proper consent step, and whoever agreed joins the list without anyone typing a thing. How a system like that is built around the business is explained in the article on a booking system for attractions.
What the spam law says about marketing messages on WhatsApp
Before talking about wording, we need to talk about the law. Section 30A of the Israeli Communications Law is what people call the spam law. It forbids a business from sending advertising material by electronic message or text message without the recipient's explicit written consent in advance. The law does not mention WhatsApp by name, but Israeli legal guides state clearly that it applies to marketing messages there too. The good news is that consent given in an electronic message counts as written consent. In other words, a checkbox in your booking form does the job.
The price of a shortcut here is high. Someone who received an ad in violation of the law can sue for statutory damages of up to 1,000 shekels per message, without proving any harm. The damages add up for every message, and the claim can be filed in small claims court without a lawyer. Beyond that, sending in violation of the law is also a criminal offense, with a fine that reaches about 226 thousand shekels as of 2026. A mailing list of hundreds of guests who never agreed is not an asset. It is a risk.
The law has an existing customer exception, and it matters a lot for a tourism business. You may send an ad even without explicit consent if the customer gave their details during a purchase or purchase negotiation. Provided the business told them the details would be used for marketing messages. That they were given a chance to refuse and did not. And that the ad relates to a product or service similar to what they bought. A guest who booked a boat trip with you in the summer and went through that process can get a message from you about a boat trip ahead of next summer. Note that the exception requires the notice up front and the chance to refuse. Even there, there is no exemption from transparency.
Consent that holds for a year, and an unsubscribe policy that works
It is not only Israeli law that requires consent. WhatsApp's own platform rules also require a business to get the customer's approval before sending messages. To state clearly that the customer agrees to receive messages. To state the business name. To comply with local law and honor stop requests. In practice, the two worlds meet in the same place. A separate checkbox in the booking form with clear wording. Not pre checked and not buried inside the terms. Something like "I agree to receive messages and updates from the business on WhatsApp".
The other side of consent is removal. The law says the recipient has the right to send a refusal notice at any time, and that the advertiser must state a simple, reasonable way to do it. In a text message you must also state the advertiser's name and contact details. On WhatsApp, the simple way is a fixed sentence at the end of every marketing message. Something like "To unsubscribe, reply Remove". And whoever asked to leave, leaves the same day. A club that honors removal builds trust. A club that ignores it turns every additional message into grounds for a lawsuit.
A cycle of a year between visits adds a consideration a neighborhood business does not have. A customer who forgot you may see even a fully legal message as spam. So in the first message of the season, it is worth restoring the context. Who you are, when they visited you, and why you are writing right now. That is not a requirement of the law. It is a way to make sure the consent they gave a year ago still feels reasonable to them.
The WhatsApp Business app or the WhatsApp Business Platform
WhatsApp has two tracks for businesses, and choosing between them is an operational decision. The Business app is what most small businesses know. It lets you create broadcast lists of up to 256 contacts per list, and you can create as many lists as you want. It has one limitation that surprises everyone who runs into it. A broadcast message only reaches customers who saved the business number in their phone contacts. A guest who booked once and did not save the number simply will not get the message, and you will not know.
The second track is the WhatsApp Business Platform, built for sending at scale and for automation. There is no 256 cap per list there. Instead there are sending tiers that start at about 250 unique recipients per 24 hours and gradually climb to 1,000, to 10,000 and to 100,000 and up as the account builds quality and trust. This is also the track that connects to a booking system and sends confirmations and reminders automatically. That is how the systems we build work.
| What you compare | The Business app | The Business Platform |
|---|---|---|
| How many recipients | Up to 256 contacts per broadcast list. You can create several lists | No cap per list. Sending tiers that start at about 250 recipients per 24 hours and climb gradually |
| Who gets the message | Only a customer who saved the business number in their contacts | Every recipient who gave consent, within the tier the account has earned |
| Automation and booking system connection | None. Manual sending from the phone | That is what it is for. Confirmations, reminders and season messages go out on their own |
| Customer consent | Required under the Israeli spam law | Required under the spam law and under the platform rules too |
| Who it fits | A small business with a few hundred customers that runs everything alone | A business with a booking system that wants the list to fill itself and send itself |
What to write in the yearly message
This is the easiest part to ruin. After you build a legal, clean list, you have earned one or two shots a year at the guest's attention. A message that opens with the word Sale and three exclamation marks wastes that right. What works is a real reason to come back. Something that happened at your place since the visit. A new route out at sea. A ride that opened. The villa they loved, with open dates exactly in the week they travel every year.
Here is what a yearly message that does the job looks like.
- A personal opening. The guest's name and when they visited you. That is the difference between a message from a business that remembers them and a message from a robot
- A reason to come back. What is new or what is waiting for them this season. Not a generic discount sent to everyone
- Timing by the booking window. The message goes out when people start planning the holiday, not when everyone has already booked
- One clear offer. One booking link, not a menu of options
- The business name and a way to unsubscribe at the end. One word to reply to leave the list
How the booking system fills the list on its own
The link between the booking system and the club is what turns the idea from manual work into a process that runs on its own. Every booking that comes in adds a customer to the list, with documented consent and a visit date. The booking confirmation and the reminder go out on WhatsApp automatically, so the channel is already warm. And when the season arrives, the system knows who to message, based on when they visited and what they booked. A summer guest gets a summer message. A family that came for Sukkot gets a message ahead of Sukkot.
That is how we built it for a water sports beach and for a vacation villa management company. Consent is collected inside the booking flow. Unsubscribes are handled automatically, and whoever asked to leave gets nothing more. And the owner does not sit over a spreadsheet of phone numbers. They write one good message before the season and the system does the rest. If you already have a booking system, this is usually a small upgrade. If you do not, that is one more reason to start there. How we approach a project like this is on the app and system development page.
Sources and verification
Every fact in this article was checked against two independent sources before publication. Anything we could not verify twice was not written here as fact.
- The official WhatsApp Help Center. The 256 contact cap per broadcast list and the rule that only someone who saved the business number receives a broadcast message
- The official WhatsApp Business Platform documentation. The opt-in consent requirement before sending messages to customers
- The Israeli Ministry of Communications on gov.il. Section 30A of the Communications Law on explicit consent in advance, the existing customer exception and the duty to offer a simple way to unsubscribe
- Kol Zchut, the Israeli rights information site. Statutory damages of up to 1,000 shekels per message without proof of harm and the criminal fine updated for 2026
- Israeli legal and marketing guides. The spam law applying to marketing messages on WhatsApp and the sending tiers on the Business Platform
This is exactly what we do at App and system development. If you want us to go over it together for your business, write to us.
Frequently asked questions
Up to 256 contacts per list, according to the official WhatsApp Help Center, and you can create as many lists as you want. Note that a broadcast message from the app only reaches people who saved the business number in their contacts. On the Business Platform there is no 256 cap, but sending tiers that climb as the account builds trust.
As a rule, no. The Israeli spam law requires explicit written consent in advance, and legal guides say it applies to WhatsApp too. There is an existing customer exception with cumulative conditions. They gave their details during a purchase. They were told the details would be used for marketing. They were given a chance to refuse, and the message relates to a service similar to what they bought. If you are not sure you meet every condition, do not send.
The recipient can sue for statutory damages of up to 1,000 shekels per message without proving harm, including in small claims court without a lawyer. The damages add up for every message you sent. Beyond that, sending in violation of the law is a criminal offense, with a fine that reaches about 226 thousand shekels as of 2026.
Probably because they did not save your number. In the WhatsApp Business app, a broadcast message only reaches people who have the business number saved in their contacts. So it is worth asking the guest to save the number during the visit, or working through the Business Platform with proper consent.
Before the guest's booking window, not during the vacation itself. Someone who travels every Passover books the vacation weeks before the holiday, and that is the moment to reach them. The full calendar of the Eilat year is in our article on when to market a business in Eilat.
A small business with a few hundred customers that runs everything alone can start with the app. When the list grows, or when there is a booking system that already sends confirmations on WhatsApp, the club should live in the same place. Consent is collected at booking, unsubscribes are handled on their own, and the seasonal message goes out from the same system without manual work.
Want us to look at this for your business?
Just write to us on WhatsApp. The first conversation comes with no commitment. 050-294-0127
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