Black Friday is coming, a global sales event that every traveler notices. For many regions, it coincides with the low season, creating both a challenge and an opportunity.
While OTAs launch large-scale discounts to capture traveler demand, independent hotels can use this attention to increase direct bookings, test new pricing strategies, and secure early cash flow.
This article outlines six practical steps to turn Black Friday into a repeatable, data-driven revenue opportunity.
1. Start with Market and Competitor Insights
Before planning any promotion, understand your market landscape.
Look at how your competitors are pricing rooms on OTAs, not just their discounts, but also the length of promotions, room categories included, and cancellation policies. Then, check your own performance data: how did demand and cancellations behave during last year’s Black Friday?
With this data, you can price strategically, not reactively.
Our partners use Exely Price Monitor to visualize competitor rates and promotions in one dashboard. It helps them track how OTAs adjust prices around local events and occupancy, and react within minutes instead of days.
2. Build Offers Based on Real Demand
Once you know the market direction, shape your offer around how guests actually book during Black Friday, not just around discounts.
Look at last year’s analytics for:
- Average stay length
- Popular room types
- Cancellation and prepayment trends
- Booking window trends
If demand is strong, but most guests book only one night, consider setting a minimum length of stay (MinLOS), for example, two or more nights.
This helps increase total revenue and reduce operational turnover without losing occupancy. Alternatively, you can create two rate options: a more flexible one-night stay at a higher price, and a more attractive offer with a MinLOS requirement.
Our customers use Exely Advisor, a free analytics tool connected to the Booking Engine that provides real-time insights and recommendations.
During Black Friday planning, they rely on Demand, Booking Window and Cancellation Reports to track when bookings started to grow last year, which rate plans performed best, and how cancellation trends evolved.
3. Promote Smartly Across All Channels
On OTAs, it’s easy to launch a promotion — one click, and your hotel gets visibility. But your own direct sales channels can do the same, and with much higher profit per booking.
Start with:
- A clear landing page or a widget on your website
- Email campaigns to returning guests
- Social media posts with promo codes that can later be tracked in analytics
- Booking engine banners reminding visitors of your limited-time deal
This multichannel visibility ensures guests see your offer wherever they browse.
4. Open Availability Further Ahead
Black Friday often attracts travelers who plan early — not only for the upcoming holidays but for spring and even summer trips. Make sure your availability calendar is open at least 6–12 months in advance, so guests can book future stays while your promotion is active.
Our clients use Exely PMS to extend their rates in all sales channels from a single Exely extranet. This simple step helps to secure early revenue and smooth occupancy for months ahead.
5. Track, Learn, and Prepare for Next Year
After the campaign ends, analyze what worked:
- Which channels converted best?
- What room types or rates sold fastest?
- How did cancellation patterns and payment preferences shift?
- Did certain offers attract more repeat guests?
This insight turns a one-time promotion into a long-term strategy. Our customers use Exely Analytics to turn their Black Friday results into a structured report, kind of ready playbook for next year’s campaign. What took weeks to analyze manually now takes minutes.
6. Why It’s Worth the Effort
Black Friday isn’t just about discounts. It’s about using data to create opportunity in a slow season. OTAs will always push promotions, and that’s fine. But when you build your own, data-driven system, you protect margins and own your guest relationships.
At Exely, we help hotels turn seasonal campaigns into predictable revenue, from competitor monitoring to campaign automation and analytics, all in one connected system.
Plan early. Act strategically. Turn low season into your most profitable period. Let’s make this Black Friday work for your hotel — not against it.
Make every campaign count and make your website work harder for you. See how Exely helps hotels grow direct sales and maximize occupancy. Learn more →
