The Spanish tourism sector is preparing for a Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign with a notable decrease in the intensity of offers compared to previous years, according to the accommodation booking platform eBooking.com, which estimates that less than half of Spanish hotels and holiday apartments will join the sales campaign and that discounts will be significantly smaller and less widespread.
The company expects that those accommodations that do join the campaign will offer average discounts of between 25% and 30%, a lower percentage than seen in post-pandemic periods. In 2022, discounts in the sector reached an average of 50%, a level that fell considerably last year.
The director of eBooking.com, Toni Raurich, points out that participation will be ‘significantly lower’, emphasising that discounts will not be ‘widespread or massive’.
Raurich adds that, although travellers with flexibility will be able to find ‘some interesting offers’ and achieve significant savings, the company does not believe that the levels of discounts seen after the pandemic will be reached. Despite less aggressive pricing, eBooking.com anticipates that Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions will provide a significant boost to booking volume.
Price sensitivity in a context of high costs will lead consumers to seek to take advantage of any available discounts. The company expects accommodation bookings to increase by 40%, maintaining the same pace as in previous seasons, thanks to promotions being extended to all areas of the tourism sector, including large hotel chains, independent hotels and associated services such as transport, car hire and destination experiences.
The term “Black Friday” has a couple of origin theories, which evolved over time: Philadelphia Police (1960s): Police officers in Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos, heavy traffic, and large crowds of shoppers and tourists who flooded the city for holiday shopping and the annual Army-Navy football game the day after Thanksgiving. Retailer Accounting (1980s): Retailers later embraced the term and promoted an alternative, positive meaning: the day when businesses’ accounting ledgers would finally turn a profit (move from using red ink for losses to black ink for profits)
Spain is one of my favourite places to visit. The weather, the food, people and way of life make it a great place to visit.