Learn how hotels can turn the year’s biggest shopping weekend into their most profitable direct booking opportunity
Black Friday is a key sales opportunity for hospitality, underscored by massive consumer spending, like the $9.8B spent online in 2023, according to Adobe Analytics. Hotels capitalizing on this with strategic campaigns have seen a 64% boost in direct bookings, proving travelers are actively hunting for specific hotel deals beyond traditional retail.
With the right marketing strategy, this event becomes more than a sales spike. It serves as a vital launchpad to build long-term relationships with travelers and guests and secure a pipeline of higher-margin direct bookings.
5 Proven Strategies to Boost Hotel Revenue This Black Friday
The most effective hotel sales strategies combine personalization, automation, and precise timing. Whether you manage a single property or an entire chain, these 5 actionable tactics leverage that approach to help you maximize direct revenue during one of the year’s busiest seasons.
1. Deploy progressive discounts
Not all Black Friday travelers are bargain hunters, many are value seekers. That’s why progressive discounting is a powerful tool: it encourages larger bookings without undermining your pricing strategy. Instead of offering a flat discount, you reward deeper commitment with better perks.
Recommended discount structures:
- 20% off for f two-night stays
- 30% off for three-night+ stays
- Free room upgrade or late checkout for early bookings
Why this works:
- Encourages longer stays and higher average booking value.
- Gives travelers a reason to book directly through your engine, not an OTA.
- Avoids price erosion while adding perceived value.
Operationally, these offers can be enhanced by:
- Using scarcity tactics (countdown timers, stock limits, or early-bird bonuses) to trigger urgency.
- Promoting the offers through WhatsApp campaigns or email for consistent reach.
With the right configuration, your Black Friday discounts won’t just fill rooms, they’ll optimize profitability and traveler satisfaction at the same time.
2. Partner Locally to Create Experience-Based Packages
In a crowded Black Friday market, price alone won’t win. Travelers are increasingly seeking unique, immersive experiences and your hotel can deliver that by partnering with local businesses. These curated packages add depth to your offer and drive bookings that go beyond the room.
Partnership ideas to consider:
- Dining experiences: Include dinner reservations at top local restaurants
- Adventure activities: Bundle with guided hikes, kayak tours, or wine tastings
- Artisan offerings: Offer locally made products, craft workshops, or cultural events
The real power isn’t just listing packages; it’s personalizing them, and technology is the key to doing this at scale. Use your website and chat channels to gather simple guest preferences – why are they visiting? For adventure, relaxation, or a culinary tour?
When this data is integrated with your PMS, you build a rich profile that allows your system to automatically trigger targeted messages. The “foodie” receives the dining offer; the “adventurer” gets the hiking bundle. This tech-driven approach transforms your generic Black Friday discount into a compelling, tailor-made experience that is far more likely to convert.
Why this matters:
- Differentiates your hotel from OTA-listed competitors that only offer room discounts
- Increases average booking value and travelers satisfaction
- Builds long-term partnerships with local vendors, a win-win for your community and brand
How to activate these packages:
- Promote them with tailored landing pages on your website
- Automate communication to upsell during inquiries
- Highlight the limited-time availability to match the urgency of Black Friday
These curated offers redefine Black Friday hotel offers as high-value experiences rather than deep discounts, positioning your property as a destination, not just accommodation.
3. Use AI-powered communication solution to capture demand in real time
Black Friday is your biggest opportunity to secure revenue, but it also exposes your biggest bottlenecks. You face a sudden, massive spike in traffic, DMs, and chats that your team simply cannot handle. This is where AI becomes your most valuable sales tool.
- Convert the Traffic Spike (instead of losing it): During a flash sale, speed is everything. Travelers will not wait 10 minutes for an answer. AI provides instant, 24/7 responses about your promotion. With 54.6% of interactions happening after hours, according to Asksuite, AI ensures you don’t lose sales just because your reservations team went home.
- Protect Your Team from Burnout: Black Friday unleashes an overwhelming volume of repetitive questions (“What are the dates?” “What’s included?”). AI filters all of it. It handles the front line on your website, WhatsApp, and Instagram, freeing your staff from burnout and allowing them to focus on complex bookings or in-house guests.
- Ensure Every Sale is Accurate: In a high-demand campaign, you cannot afford inconsistent answers. Generative AI is trained on the exact rules of your promotion, ensuring every traveler gets the correct information, in any language, and is guided straight to booking.
- Turn Chaos into Profit: This isn’t just about surviving the rush; it’s about maximizing profit. By providing an instant answer to every single lead, hotels drastically reduce missed inquiries. During a high-intent period like Black Friday, this efficiency translates directly into a significant increase in direct bookings.
4. Automate re-engagement with cart recovery and smart triggers
Cart abandonment is a critical challenge during Black Friday. Potential guests are comparing deals across multiple sites, and a moment of distraction means a lost booking. Automated re-engagement via WhatsApp, powered by a “team of AI agents,” is your most effective strategy to recover these ready-to-book travelers.
This goes beyond a generic “You left something in your cart” communication. Using a multi-agent tool like Asksuite’s AskFlow Agents, you can deploy a specific Booking & Revenue Agent dedicated to this task.
For example, 30 minutes after a traveler abandons the booking engine, the agent automatically sends a personalized WhatsApp message:
“Hi [Traveler Name], I saw you were looking at our Black Friday deal for the Deluxe Room. Do you have any questions I can answer before you book? This offer is ending soon!”
This single, automated follow-up re-opens the conversation and pushes the traveler to convert. The data proves this works: the Chat Recovery Agent is the most activated agent by Asksuite clients (88% of Asksuite’s Askflow Agents customers are using it right now) and delivers a staggering 31x average ROI. These are real, high-margin bookings recovered with zero manual effort.
Setting up your automation:
- Integrate AskFlow with your PMS, CRM, and booking engine for real-time data on traveler behavior
- Set up personalized, dynamic messages based on user activity, for example, “We saved your reservation! Complete your booking now and save 10%”
- Use urgency tactics like “Only X rooms left at this price” or limited-time discounts
With automation handling these recovery tasks, your team can focus on high-touch sales while AI captures the low-hanging fruit.
5. Plan post-Black Friday campaigns
The impact of Black Friday doesn’t have to end when the deals do. In fact, it’s a prime opportunity to build lasting relationships with new travelers and encourage repeat visits. By nurturing these newly acquired customers, you can transform one-time Black Friday bookers into loyal, returning guests.
Steps for post-Black Friday engagement:
- Follow-up with WhatsApp messages: Send personalized messages thanking travelers for their booking and offering early access to upcoming holiday deals
- Upsell opportunities: Offer room upgrades, spa packages, or dining options to enhance their upcoming stay
- Referral incentives: Encourage travelers to refer friends and family with discounts or rewards for future bookings
Key tools to implement:
- Performance Dashboards: Asksuite’s Performance Dashboard, for example, provides a live view of your entire sales funnel, tracking “Opportunities Generated” and “AI Sales,” and even splits AI performance between “inside” and “outside” business hours. This instant data shows you exactly which channels and offers are converting most, allowing you to stop guessing and double down on what works while the campaign is still live.
- Data-driven personalization: Leverage traveler behavior data from Black Friday bookings to craft tailored future offers
- Automated follow-ups: Create automated post-stay messages that ask for feedback, offer promotions for future stays, and nurture loyalty
Why this strategy matters:
- Black Friday bookings are an excellent source of customer acquisition but also a chance for customer retention
- Use travelers preferences and behaviors captured during the Black Friday period to create personalized offers for future stays
- A well-executed post-Black Friday campaign increases the likelihood of repeat bookings and long-term loyalty
The key to success lies in turning a one-time deal into an ongoing relationship. Don’t miss the chance to engage and upsell these valuable travelers.
Start now to stay ahead
Black Friday presents a huge opportunity for hotels to boost direct bookings, but the key to success lies in preparation. By using AI to automate communication, offering progressive discounts, and engaging guests post-sale, you can turn this sales period into long-term revenue growth.
Start planning early, integrate the right tools, and personalize your approach to make this Black Friday your most profitable yet. The time to act is now, don’t miss out on capturing high-intent travelers and building lasting relationships with guests.
Ready to start running successful campaigns this Black Friday? Master the communication channel most used by travelers worldwide: WhatsApp! Learn the latest best practices for the tool with Asksuite’s complete guide! Download now!
