Traditionally January was the season to dream of holidays and find deals but with the recent rise of days like Black Friday, are travel booking trends shifting too? Mariam Sharp takes a look

The Black Friday phenomenon has been creeping across the globe since the term was coined by the Philadelphia Police in the 1960s. Then shopping mall’s caused traffic jams and crazy frenzied discount shopping to attract people after Thanksgiving. It has leapt again in scale and reputation to a global day of shopping, mostly due to the influence of major online merchants like Amazon. 

In the UK, it was nothing short of bewildering to watch people trample fellow shoppers, risk falling TV’s stacked at great heights and fight over yet another gaming device. It looked more like looting than shopping and it raises a lot of questions.

• Is this a new culture of get it for as close to free as possible?
• Is bargain-hunting the new scavenging that clears away the detritus of old stock?
• Is this hunt for deals caused by wages so low that the only time people can buy is when the price is right?

What made it even more bizarre, was to see NBC News in the US reporting the UK frenzy while US retailers complained that ‘Black Friday isn’t what it used to be’.

Maybe it isn’t what it used to be because Black Friday is expanding its reach. First came Cyber Monday, due to online marketers and stores, then ‘Gray [that’s grey to us in the UK] Thursday’ – that was Thanksgiving Day itself! In the run up to Thanksgiving, Walmart started opening at midnight, then 10 pm and then 8pm and finally at 6pm on the day itself. The result was 11 arrests as Walmart workers protested their pay and conditions at 1,600 stores. Super Sunday and Green Saturday are also days to make up the weekend. Or as Walmart said in this year’s online campaign: ‘Why wait, Cyber Week starts now’.

This begs another question: what are the limits of artificial scarcity?

While high numbers are reported in terms of sales, what does it mean to profits if the discounts are so high? Does high scale on low margin items really make the difference to the bottom line? Importantly for the travel industry, does discounting work for luxury items? 

“Sales can alienate existing customers and tarnish a brand’s reputation, but it’s becoming trickier for brands to navigate events like Black Friday because shoppers are trained to buy on promotion," says Sarah Willersdorf at Boston Consulting Group.

So, is Black Friday going to become lodged in peoples mind as a time to book their holidays as well as finish their Christmas shopping? There are signs that this might be the case.

What is interesting to see is that the travel sector is discounting with goals in mind, such as new customer acquisition, or targeting sales to cover a low season. Here are examples of five strategies.

• Sell low season offers

British Airways (BA) offered £100 off for customers if they spent a minimum of £2,500 for two passengers for hotels and flights deals and £50 for spend between £1,000 and £2,499. BA deals were aimed to engage customers in buying beyond just flights – in other words, hotels or car hire. They were also aimed at low season January to March for a minimum of two people.

• Move people towards using an app

Expedia’s discounts of up to 90% off were available only to customers that signed up via their app - which is important to their strategy in relation to Google.

• Increase loyalty programme customers

A number of companies were using the deals as a way to drive customers into their loyalty programmes. IHG were offering 1000 bonus points to attract new customers to its ‘dining programme’, in addition to the points they would get from dining if customers spent $30 at one of the participating restaurants within 30 days. Avis Car Rentals, and Wyndham Stays, and Avios Bonus’s credit card with BA all offered miles and bonus points to encourage new customers to sign up.

• Attract new customers outside of OTA’s and Metasearch

Hotels have also been especially active in offering discounts over the weekend, Hotel Tonight offered deals of just $7/£7 in destinations across the US and UK for deals on Black Friday night rising to $70/£99 on Cyber Monday - for locations near malls or outlets. As the deals were limited the catch phrase was ‘that they would go faster than a slice of Mom’s pumpkin pie’. 

This was one example of many by hotels such as Best Western and Marriott, which offered between 20% -50% off to attract customers directly. Hotel chain Howard Johnson even created their own special deal day called ‘Orange Wednesday’ for participating hotels in US and Canada.

• Collect Email addresses

Tour operator Friendly Plant offered $100 - £500 off of package deals on Cyber Monday, to collect email addresses.

So here is something to ponder. Will these big discount shopping days be nothing more than a race to the bottom of low yield returns, or the first step up the ladder of building new customer relationships? Only time will tell!