SMS through Bookboost is delivered by our messaging partner, Twilio, and reaches guests in most countries. A small number of countries are blocked, though, and an SMS to a guest there will not arrive. This article explains why, how to spot it, and how to reach those guests another way.
Countries where SMS is blocked
Twilio marks some countries as High Risk because they currently see the most SMS fraud. To protect every account on the platform, Bookboost does not send SMS to these countries:
Algeria (+213)
Azerbaijan (+994)
Bangladesh (+880)
Israel (+972)
Nigeria (+234)
Oman (+968)
Pakistan (+92)
Palestinian Territory (+970, +972)
Sri Lanka (+94)
Tajikistan (+992)
Tunisia (+216)
SMS cannot reach these countries at all, for legal reasons:
Cuba (+53)
Iran (+98)
Syria (+963)
The country is decided by the guest's phone number, not by where the guest lives or where your hotel is. Twilio reviews its High Risk list from time to time, so this list can change. To read how Twilio decides which countries are High Risk, see Twilio's SMS Geo Permissions guide.
This is set on our side and applies to all accounts. There is nothing to change in Bookboost or in Twilio, and you do not need a Twilio account of your own.
How a blocked SMS shows up
Bookboost does not warn you before a message goes to a blocked country, and it does not alert you afterwards. The place to find it is the campaign's Schedules tab:
Open the campaign report and go to Schedules.
Find the guest. Their row shows Unable to reach guest.
Click the status text to see the error behind it. A blocked country shows error 21408.
The guest's details are not the problem here, so there is nothing to fix on the guest profile. See The Schedules tab on a campaign report for the other statuses.
Reaching guests in a blocked country
Put WhatsApp and email ahead of SMS. On an Omnichannel campaign, Bookboost tries your channels in the order set under Channel Preferences, so SMS only goes out when the channels above it cannot be used. See Journey campaign advanced settings.
Check the guest has an email address. If WhatsApp does not reach the guest and there is no email on their profile, the campaign falls back to SMS, and in a blocked country nothing arrives.
Send it from the Inbox. If the guest writes to you, reply in the Inbox on the channel they used, and include anything the campaign would have sent, such as a pre check-in link.
WhatsApp has its own, different list of blocked countries. See WhatsApp country coverage.
Local rules still apply
Outside the blocked countries, each country still sets its own rules for SMS, and they apply to the guest's country rather than yours:
Some countries restrict message content, including links and how the sender is shown. A message that arrives in one country can be blocked in another with the same wording.
Getting a local number can take weeks in some countries. See Connect an SMS number.
If you are planning an SMS campaign to a country you have not messaged before, ask us first.
Getting help
Open Help at the bottom of the left menu and choose Talk to Us, or email [email protected]. Tell us the country you want to reach, and we can tell you whether SMS goes there.