Take advantage of Black Friday to increase bookings
June 2026
In the last few years, Black Friday has gone beyond its American roots to become the biggest annual sales event in the world. This is a time when shoppers go hunting for bargains — and yes, that includes bargains on their holidays in search of cheap holiday apartments. Let’s take a look at how your Black Friday promotions can boost your holiday rental business.
What is Black Friday?
The exact date of Black Friday changes every year, but it always takes place on the last Friday in November — the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. Traditionally, this was the day when Americans would do their Christmas shopping, so many shops began offering special deals.
Nowadays, Black Friday is more than just a single day. People talk about Cyber Monday (the following Monday), the Black Friday weekend, and even “Black Week”. As more and more people prefer to shop online, the sales events last several days, with businesses competing to catch customers’ eyes.
Preparing holiday apartments for Black Friday offers
Many of us think of Black Friday as a day for snapping up bargains on physical items, but in fact, businesses of all kinds have special Black Friday deals. In the tourism industry, for example, you’ll often find Black Friday offers on flights and accommodation. So, why not look at this time as one of the best opportunities for holiday apartments to offer deals?
Here are some reasons why you should consider adding a Black Friday sale to your business plan:
- It’s great for your occupancy. Black Friday bargain hunters are usually planning their trips well in advance, so they’ll rent your holiday apartment in several months’ time. This means you’ll start the new year with bookings already in place.
- It gets more eyes on you. A holiday apartment Black Friday marketing plan is a great way to draw attention from new customers, especially since many landlords do not have special prices during this time.
- It encourages repeat customers. You can email former guests about your Black Friday offers. They already know and like your property and services, so they may well be inspired to rent your house for the holidays.
Now, let’s consider how best to implement your marketing strategy and ensure that you’ll be making money on Black Friday:
Prepare in advance
A good sales event needs careful planning. You don’t want to find yourself scrambling to think of a promotion late on Thursday night, so start planning your Black Friday offers at least a month ahead of time. You’ll also want to plant the seeds of your sale in your customers’ heads — and that means informing them about it early. A lot of Black Friday purchases are impulse buys, but that’s not the case for things like accommodation. Travellers need time to consider, thinking about holiday dates and so on, before they swoop in on your deals.
That means it’s a good idea to start to advertise holiday home offers before Black Friday. If you’ve already got a mailing list, you can send out a couple of teaser emails a week or two in advance. Many companies only send their Black Friday emails on the day itself —do this, and you’ll risk your sale getting lost, as people receive so many messages. Teasers before the event will pique customers’ interest and make them start to think about holidays for the year ahead.
Use social media
Sending emails to your existing base of customers is a great way to attract repeat guests. However, to keep your business sustainable, you also need fresh customers to rent your holiday home. For that, you can use social media.
Like your emails, you can start teasing your cheap holiday apartment offers a couple of weeks in advance. Don’t give away exactly what your deals will be. Instead, you want to intrigue customers and give them a reason to come back to your page. Look for trending hashtags that relate to Black Friday and use them in your posts.
Try scheduling posts to go live throughout the month of November, getting more and more frequent in the build-up to Black Friday and during the sale itself. Start with teasers a week apart, then gradually speed up to posting every other day, then every day. On Black Friday, you can even share multiple posts. Just make sure each one is different enough to keep people interested. One of the best social media marketing strategies is using content created by former guests, which audiences see as authentic rather than forced.
This is a good time to try a full-on social media marketing campaign if you haven’t done it before. You could even make partnerships with travel influencers. Influencers can be a fairly costly option, but they have a huge audience already, so it might be worth the expense.
Change it up
When you first make your Black Friday plan, think about how long you plan to keep offering discounts for your holiday apartment. Is your sale a weekend event on a specific portal for holiday rentals or only on Black Friday itself? Will it continue until Cyber Monday, too — or will you go for a full week-long event? The weekend option is probably the most popular, but you can decide for yourself what will suit your business. As for the nature of your Black Friday event, you have three different options, each with its own pros and cons.
Firstly, you can keep the same deal running throughout the Black Friday sale. This is simple, easy to promote, and doesn’t require much effort from you.
Secondly, you can offer bigger discounts for your holiday apartment as the sale continues. For example, you might start with 10% off and gradually increase that to 30% by Cyber Monday. This is a good way to attract late bargain hunters, but it might annoy people who reserved in the first hours of your sale.
Thirdly, you can make a different offer every day of the sale. This is the most time-consuming option for you, but it will hold customers’ interest. For example, you might offer special prices on holiday apartments during Black Friday, complimentary late checkout and welcome drinks on Saturday, half-price tours and activities on Sunday, and discounts at the local spa on Monday.
Encourage direct bookings
Black Friday is a great time to encourage guests to book directly through your site rather than a holiday rental portal. Put up a special Black Friday landing page and direct traffic there from your emails and social media campaigns. Before the sale starts, your landing page can feature a large countdown clock. This helps build excitement and anticipation in the run-up to Black Friday.
Black Friday is an excellent time for holiday rental landlords to make a splash with their business. Start planning early, and it could be a real highlight of your calendar next year.