How can I reduce spam and bots on my form?

Why protect your form against spam?

Key points • Spam clutters your notifications and skews your data • Simple settings are enough to block most bots • Well-designed protection improves the quality of requests received

Hotel website forms—contact requests, event bookings, newsletter sign-ups, quote requests—are often targeted by bots. These automated submissions generate spam, overload your inbox, and can negatively impact your statistics. Fortunately, several simple solutions exist to drastically reduce these unwanted submissions.

To begin, activate native spam protection if your form offers it. This will already filter out many suspicious behaviors and prevent the most common automated submissions. If your platform includes basic protection, make sure it is enabled in the form settings.

Next, add a honeypot. This highly effective method consists of a hidden field that only a bot will attempt to fill in. If this field contains a value, the submission is automatically blocked. This method remains invisible to your visitors and does not impact the user experience.

💡 Tip: Rename the honeypot field with a title that appeals to bots, such as “email2” or “phone_optional”.

Another simple and effective technique is to add a very light anti-bot question, for example: • “What is 2 + 3?” • “Write the word HOTEL” This remains easy for your visitors while blocking many automated scripts.

The most advanced option is to integrate a reCAPTCHA solution or equivalent. This adds an automated verification or an "I'm not a robot" button. It's extremely effective, even if it adds a small visual element to your form. This solution is recommended if your hotel website receives a high volume of spam.

You can also reduce spam by: • limiting the number of emails sent per minute • blocking suspicious IP addresses (advanced capability via your hosting provider) • filtering out prohibited keywords in messages • using anti-spam tools on your email account (Gmail, Outlook, etc.)

Don't forget to test your form after modification: • normal submission (human user) • test with honeypot field filled • test without disabling the anti-bot protection. This ensures that your protection is robust without inconveniencing your customers.

Conclusion

Reducing spam on your form is easy thanks to built-in protections, honeypots, anti-bot questions, and reCAPTCHA-type solutions. With these measures, you protect your hotel website and improve the quality of messages received.