Black Friday doesn’t work, says operator shunning annual sale

While many travel companies are gearing up for Black Friday, some have decided to shun the annual discounting day altogether this year.

Kuoni said it had no plans to launch any Black Friday deals as in the past the promotion hasn’t worked. Instead, the operator said it was planning to focus on its turn-of-the-year campaign, which is traditionally the peak booking period for families.

Cosmos has also opted not to run any specific offers this Friday, preferring instead to rely on its all-year-round price match guarantee, whereby it promises to match any like-for-like tour price and give customers and additional £100 discount on top.

A Cosmos spokeswoman said: "We don’t have any specific Black Friday offers running, but customers can be sure that as a result of the live booking system, they will get the best and most-up-to-date price on the day of booking."

Black Friday started in the US as a way to kick-start Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving, and gradually it has extended into the weekend, while some companies offer discounts for a week or more in the month before Christmas.

However, consumers’ association Which? claimed this week that its own research showed that nine out of 10 deals last year were cheaper at other times of the year, and nearly half of the 94 products it tracked could be bought for less in the six months after Black Friday.

TUI is one of the many travel companies to have extended its ‘Black Friday’ promotion this year, launching it at midnight on Monday for seven days, two days longer than in 2017. It is offering savings of up to £100 on short to medium-haul holidays, up to £150 off long-haul, and the chance to be entered into a prize drawer to win a holiday refund.

Adventure operator G Adventures claims to have launched its biggest ever ‘Cyber Week Sale’, which includes Black Friday and ‘Cyber Monday’ next week. Since Tuesday, it has been offering up to 35% off tours departing between December and the end of July 2019.

MD Brian Young said: "G Adventures has been running Cyber Sale campaigns to cover Black Friday and Cyber Monday for the past two years. We have experienced booking growth every year, and have seen the cyber weekend move from purely online offers to both online and offline across the UK retail environment. 

Luxury cruise operator Scenic has also extended its Black Friday promotion this year after seeing a 142% week-on-week increase in bookings during last year’s offer of free private transfers, which it ran from November 22 to November 30. This year, the operator is repeating its free transfer offer, plus it has additional offers for its Club members, and the promotion will run for three days longer.

Cruise & Maritime Voyages is offering additional Black Friday discounts of up to 15% on more than 70 ex-UK cruises from Friday until November 26.

Thomas Cook Airlines has been running special promotions all week, up to and including Friday. It has also launched a tool on its website that enables customers to find the cheapest flight on all available Thomas Cook routes. Flights can be filtered by departure airport, destination and month.

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