Travel agents have credited an increase in Black Friday and Cyber Monday supplier promotions for a pre-Christmas sales boost.
The Advantage Travel Partnership enjoyed its strongest sales week last week since the end of October, outperforming last year, after creating dedicated assets, information on campaigns and emails for members.
Chief commercial officer Kelly Cookes said: “That [strong sales] tells us Black Friday made an impact. Short-haul was the big winner with growth across all [supplier] partners and was dominated by summer 2025 departures. Cruise also performed well.”
She added: “Black Friday and Cyber Monday seem to be growing year on year in terms of how our suppliers are building campaigns around them.”
ArrangeMY Escape general manager Jennifer Lynch reported “far more” Black Friday deals this year, with sales through its two shops topping £100,000 last week.
“For the time of year, this is pretty good,” she said, adding: “It makes sense to use Black Friday to promote deals. It’s so heavily advertised across all retail industries it seems silly for travel not to be involved. We can’t ignore it and will continue to grow the marketing for it for 2025.”
Idle Travel director Tony Mann agreed: “The market slows down in late November and early December so why not get behind it, even if you are sceptical? For someone who was a bit pessimistic, Black Friday worked out unbelievably well for us.”
Idle Travel’s sales of Jet2holidays jumped 72% last week compared to the same week last year after using the operator’s marketing assets and sending out emails to 12,000 clients. “I was shocked, it really had an impact,” he said.
Oasis Travel Worldchoice director Heidi Evans said: “We’ve been saying to people, ‘If you can afford it then just book it!’”
Speaking at Jet2’s annual conference last week, Google senior industry manager Ailish English said the growing popularity of Black Friday in the UK had created a “mini peak” pre-Christmas for travel sales.
“Black Friday is a shift we didn’t have previously. It’s definitely something to think about,” he said.
Agents maintained the sales boost was unlikely to affect peak January trading.
Fred Olsen Travel retail director Paul Hardwick said: “I think the peak spike is flattening due to other key sale campaigns such as Black Friday but with many consumers booking more than one holiday a year now I do not see this taking large volumes of bookings away from turn-of-year.”
Black Friday deals delivered a 70% year on year sales hike last week for the agency.
Althams Travel managing director Sandra McAllister said the agency’s sales finished November up 9%.
But she stressed: “While we did get behind the Black Friday sale – we were inundated with offers from operators – I believe customers are getting wise to the fact the offers are actually widely available well before and after the so called weekend sale.”
Speaking at the Abta Travel Trends conference, G Adventures EMEA marketing director Ant Stone said the operator’s investment into the trade for Black Friday was now “on par” with January. G Adventures and TTC Tour Brands told the conference they had started their Black Friday campaigns early to boost sales.
Operators have already reported record sales during last week.
Explore Worldwide enjoyed its best Black Friday sales week in its history, with trade sales up 58% on last year. Its highest-ever revenue on a single day came on Cyber Monday, December 2, the last day of its Black Friday Sale, which started on November 25 and included hundreds of trips discounted by up to 25% for 2025.
The specialist adventure operator has also achieved 50% of its annual sales target in one month, November, for its financial year from November 1, 2024, to October 31, 2025.
Managing Director Michael Edwards said: “Black Friday week has been one of our biggest weeks in recent years. This year, long haul destinations have taken centre stage with India, Japan and Botswana all top-selling destinations.”