Black Friday for Hotels and Attractions: Don't Wait Until the 27th

Every November I tell myself I won't buy anything on Black Friday. Every November I end up with a slightly pointless gadget and a mild sense of shame. The point is, people are primed to buy that week. And these days they're not just buying air fryers. They're booking trips, days out and nights away.

If you run a hotel, holiday park or attraction on the Isle of Wight or the South Coast, Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November this year. The annoying bit is that the bookings don't wait for the 27th. The places that do well start weeks before.

So here's what the data from last year says, and a simple plan you can still pull off this month.

The 2025 numbers that matter

Lighthouse looked at 1,982 hotels around Black Friday 2025 and split them by one thing: whether they ran a dedicated Black Friday campaign on their own website. Their write up on Hospitality Net is worth a read, but the headline is pretty wild:

That last one is the bit I'd pin above the reception desk. The usual worry is "if I do a deal, I'm just giving money away". Last year, the hotels that showed up with an offer ended up with bigger bookings, not smaller ones.

And the traffic lift for campaign hotels? Just 4.6%. As Lighthouse puts it, Black Friday is "a conversion event, not an acquisition event". The winners didn't buy loads more visitors. They turned more of the people already looking into bookings.

It's the same story outside hotels. Mangopay told eCommerce News that UK travel bookings on its platforms were up 23% and ticketing up 6% in the 2024 Black Friday window compared with the week before. Experiences are very much on the shopping list.

Start earlier than feels normal

Journey, which runs voucher sales for hotels, looked at £5.11 million of hotel voucher sales across Black Friday to Cyber Monday 2025. Their Black Friday insights found 32% of campaign sales happened before Black Friday itself, and campaigns that launched at least 14 days early did best. Their advice for 2026 was to start around 13 November.

So if you haven't started yet, don't panic, but don't wait for the 26th either. A week or two of early access for past guests is still very doable.

Two other things from the Journey data I liked:

A simple Black Friday plan for hotels and attractions

None of this needs an enterprise tech stack. It needs a decent offer, a website that can close the deal, and a couple of well timed emails.

1. Pick one offer that's only available direct. Not your whole price list. One thing that's genuinely better on your own site than on an OTA. A free upgrade, breakfast included, a midweek winter break, or an annual pass for an attraction. Make it obvious before people see the price.

2. Point it at the dates you actually need to fill. Black Friday doesn't have to discount your August weekends. Use it to fill January and February, or to get early 2027 bookings in the diary. If you're selling stays a long way out, keep an eye on cancellations, because long lead OTA bookings cancel far more often than direct ones.

3. Put the offer on your website, not just Instagram. A banner on the homepage, a proper landing page and the offer carried right through to the booking engine. If people have to hunt for it, they'll go back to Booking.com. Here's how we think about landing pages that convert.

4. Email your past guests first. They already like you. Journey found email revenue more than doubled around Black Friday, with peaks around the early access, launch, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sends. So plan three or four short emails, not one.

5. Test the whole thing on your phone. Click the email, land on the page, try to book. If it takes longer than making a cup of tea, it's too long.

6. Track it properly. Tag your links and make sure your booking engine records where the booking came from. Otherwise you'll never know if it worked. This guide on tracking which marketing produced your bookings walks you through it.

What about the rest of winter?

Black Friday is a great excuse to talk to your guests, but it's one week. The bigger win is having a website and email list that work like this all year. If quiet months are the real worry, here's how to increase off season bookings without just discounting.

Want a hand?

If you're not sure where your direct bookings are slipping away, start with our free marketing scorecard. It takes a few minutes and shows you what to fix first. If you'd rather have someone look after the whole thing, Media House Agency is a digital marketing agency on the Isle of Wight that works with hotels, attractions and destination brands across the South Coast. We handle websites that actually book, paid ads and social media, all pointed at bookings rather than likes. Get in touch and we can have a chat.

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