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Invisible offers, promotional codes causing confusion, outdated chatbots, and missed sales opportunities due to a lack of planning. These are some of the key takeaways from Black Friday 2025.
Black Friday has become one of the most important commercial campaigns of the year for many hotels. Over a few days, booking intent peaks, OTAs intensify their marketing activities, and hotels have an excellent opportunity to boost their direct sales.
However, crafting a great offer is not always enough. During Black Friday 2025, we at Mirai reviewed numerous campaigns and identified several recurring mistakes. In many cases, these were configuration, visibility, or communication issues that ultimately hindered bookings and considerably diminished the campaign’s potential.
Here are seven of the main lessons we learned last year that are worth reviewing ahead of Black Friday 2026.
1. Having a great Black Friday offer that nobody can find
One of the most common issues we encountered during Black Friday 2025 was the lack of visibility for certain promotions, both on the hotel website and within the booking engine itself. At certain hotels, particularly where Mirai managed the booking engine but not the website, we found properly configured offers that had zero presence on the homepage. No banner, no pop-up, no featured section from which to access the campaign.
In other instances, the promotion was available in the booking engine, but relegated to the background, competing with more attractive standard discounts or lacking sufficient prominence against standard rates. Even though Black Friday was technically active, users could end up booking another option without ever noticing the promotion or the campaign benefits.
It is worth remembering that during these days, Booking, Expedia, and other competitors advertise their promotions very prominently. We therefore recommend reviewing how Black Friday is presented across both the website and the booking engine, ensuring clear access from the homepage and verifying that the offer stands out from other alternatives. If a guest lands on our website looking for Black Friday, they should find it effortlessly.
2. Winning the click but losing the promotion during the booking process
Another issue encountered during Black Friday 2025 was the inconsistency between the promotions advertised by hotels and what guests ultimately saw when trying to book. Occasionally, users arrived from an email or creative asset featuring a specific discount, but upon reaching the website or booking engine, they were met with other offers or promo codes that made it difficult to identify their applicable terms. We also saw entry links initially displaying dates with no availability for the advertised promotion, unnecessarily complicating the booking experience.
One of the most frequent mistakes was relying on Promo Codes instead of public, visible offers, under the premise of tracking campaign performance more effectively. However, bookings generated through a standard offer can be tracked and analysed just as accurately, without requiring the guest to know or enter a code. In other instances, we found multiple codes active simultaneously during Black Friday, creating confusion as to which one provided the best terms. Promo Codes make sense when targeting specific audiences, such as Club members or groups with exclusive perks, but using them solely for tracking purposes introduces unnecessary friction to the booking journey.
Our recommendation is to prioritise visible, directly bookable offers for general promotions, reserving Promo Codes for cases where there is a clear commercial rationale. It is also essential to check landing page links, ensure that pre-loaded dates have availability, and confirm that the advertised discount and conditions match what the guest actually sees, on both desktop and mobile.
3. Believing that a 30% discount guarantees having the best price
During Black Friday 2025, we found hotels that had set substantial discounts, yet their final website price remained higher than what guests could find on Booking or Expedia. This is relatively common when OTAs apply additional incentives, such as Booking Sponsored Benefit (Booking Paga) or Expedia ARM, or when third-party redistributed rates come into play. Consequently, offering the same 30% discount across all channels does not guarantee that the website has the best price, nor that it will capture a meaningful share of demand.
However, there is another consideration we deem even more crucial: the profitability of those bookings. In a campaign featuring such aggressive discounts, driving high sales volume through OTAs can become significantly less attractive once distribution costs are factored in. By contrast, capturing that same demand directly – even by offering an additional perk to the guest – can yield a higher net revenue. In fact, some of the top-performing hotels we observed focused heavily on their direct channel, even launching campaigns exclusive to their official website.
Our recommendation is to use Black Friday not only to increase booking volume, but also to optimise distribution mix and profitability. This means comparing final prices, securing a competitive edge for the website and assessing whether extending the campaign to all intermediaries is truly necessary. Even high-end hotels reluctant to compete on steep discounts can capitalise on this demand through Club perks, value-added services or exclusive experiences without diluting brand positioning.
4. Preparing a great offer and forgetting to promote it to existing guests
Another trend observed during Black Friday 2025 was hotels investing significant effort into configuring discounts and promotions, only to omit Email Marketing entirely. This is particularly striking in a campaign where consumers are actively looking for deals and display higher purchase intent than usual.
Hotels possess a valuable commercial asset: their existing database. People who already know the property, have stayed previously, have shown interest in its services, or have joined the hotel’s Loyalty Club. With a properly managed and compliant database, Black Friday is an ideal opportunity to re-engage past guests and drive them directly to the official website, rather than relying exclusively on third-party acquisition.
There is no need for an overly complex communication strategy. A launch campaign and a final reminder before Black Friday ends, both properly segmented and featuring direct links to the offers, serve as an effective starting point. Furthermore, hotels with a loyalty club should consider offering early access or exclusive perks to members, strengthening customer relationships while providing compelling incentives to book directly.
5. Arriving at Black Friday with no budget and no capacity to compete in digital advertising
Another hurdle identified during Black Friday 2025 was hotels reaching November with depleted marketing budgets or zero headroom to scale campaigns. This was often caused by inadequate annual planning or failing to anticipate the need for increased spend during a peak purchase window. Moreover, Black Friday is no longer confined to a single Friday: OTAs and hotel chains launch campaigns well in advance, and our 2025 data revealed demand spikes starting the week prior. Waiting until the Friday itself to activate promotions often means missing valuable sales opportunities.
Our analysis of Google Ads Brand campaigns showed that hotels running Black Friday campaigns saw a 65% increase in attributed sales compared to their typical autumn run rate, versus just 5% growth for non-participating hotels. While advertising competition surged and CPCs increased by 37%, conversion rates on ads featuring offers improved by 33%. Consequently, the blended commission cost for brand campaigns among participating hotels dropped from 4.36% to 3.50% – a reduction of roughly 20%. Despite paying more per click, higher conversion reduced overall advertising cost per euro sold.
The analysis also identified an estimated €8.55 million in incremental sales that could have been captured with higher ad visibility, representing a potential return of around €26 in revenue per additional euro invested. While an estimate rather than a guaranteed outcome, it underscores the importance of forecasting budget requirements and maintaining competitive bidding. We recommend reviewing historical hotel performance and preparing acquisition budgets well in advance, focusing spend on peak days to safeguard visibility when conversion potential is highest.
6. Running a chatbot that promotes a different offer
This was one of the most glaring takeaways from 2025. During our reviews, we found multiple instances where chatbots and on-site communication tools were out of sync with the Black Friday campaign. While the website or booking engine displayed a specific discount, the automated assistant pushed a different deal, provided an outdated promo code, or recommended standard rates that were no longer competitive.
This issue extends beyond chatbots. Many hotels employ messaging tools, pop-ups, automatic alerts, or promotional banners within the booking engine that operate independently of the main campaign. When these elements continue displaying standard discounts or competing promo codes, they create friction and confusion for users who are already primed to convert.
We strongly advise auditing all messaging tools involved in the booking journey, ensuring copy, discounts, and deep links match the campaign. For chatbots, run test queries regarding active deals and best rates. If certain pop-ups or widgets do not support the Black Friday strategy, temporarily disabling them helps eliminate distractions and keeps the spotlight on the primary offer.
7. Over-restricting the offer to the point of killing conversion
Protecting high-demand dates is entirely sound, and Black Friday should never require abandoning a solid Revenue Management strategy. However, during 2025 we observed offers burdened with so many restrictions that finding bookable dates was nearly impossible. Excessive blackouts, inflated minimum stays, narrow room allocations or discounts restricted to non-standard room types severely capped sales potential.
At the opposite extreme, some properties choose not to participate at all, a common stance among luxury hotels concerned about brand dilution or those already forecasting solid occupancy. However, taking part does not have to mean slashing prices. Alternatives include offering exclusive Club benefits, complimentary add-ons or curated on-property experiences. Even when occupancy targets are met, the campaign can be leveraged to shift bookings away from costly intermediaries toward the direct channel.
We recommend tailoring Black Friday around specific hotel objectives, focusing on low-demand shoulder periods while maintaining selective availability during high-demand dates. Review inventory quotas, room types, meal plans, cancellation policies and restrictions to strike the right balance between rate integrity and campaign volume. Ultimately, deciding where to stimulate demand is just as critical as deciding how much of that demand should be secured directly.
One final recommendation before launching the campaign
Most of the aforementioned issues could have been resolved with a full pre-launch audit. Throughout 2025, we encountered campaigns that appeared ready because discounts were loaded, banners published, and URLs set up, yet still failed when testing the end-to-end booking flow as a customer.
Perform thorough tests on desktop and mobile across various dates and occupancies, review final checkout prices, and verify that promotional rates carry seamlessly through to completion. Ensure this audit covers chatbots, Email Marketing links, and paid media campaigns, keeping all internal teams and external agencies tightly aligned prior to launch.
What we learned from Black Friday 2025
After reviewing last year’s campaigns, our key conclusion is that a strong promotional strategy requires equally meticulous execution. Most pitfalls were entirely avoidable without large investments or complex tech developments, requiring only proactive planning and team coordination.
In a competitive landscape where Booking, Expedia, and other intermediaries invest heavily to capture demand, flawless execution is decisive for direct sales. Offering a competitive rate is not enough: guests must be able to discover the offer, find availability, and book smoothly on the official website.
Heading into Black Friday 2026, auditing these seven areas in advance will help ensure campaigns move beyond mere participation and unlock their full commercial potential.
