Last holiday season, 43% of US shoppers planned to buy at least one gift card, part of an expected US$29 billion in gift card spending. People clearly want to give gifts like these, and plenty of them will pay full price.
So why do so many hotels open every gift voucher campaign with a discount? A markdown does move volume in the moment, no argument. The trouble shows up over a year of them: your best customers work out that your price is never quite the real price, and they start holding off for the next code.
Every discount you run teaches your best customers to wait for the next one
A regular who buys a spa voucher at 20% off in November learns something you never meant to teach: your January price is soft. The next time they want to buy, they wait for the email with the code in it instead of buying on the spot. Run enough of these and the impulse purchase dries up. The customers who used to buy on a whim now sit on their hands until the sale they have learned to expect.
Spend the same money on added value and the gift feels more generous
A $20 discount and a $20 glass of champagne on arrival cost you roughly the same. They land very differently with the buyer. "Save $20" says the voucher was a little overpriced to begin with. "Includes a glass of champagne on arrival" says the gift is worth more than the buyer paid for it. The added value costs you what the discount would have, and your price list comes through the campaign intact.
Five ways to create urgency without ever touching the price
You do not need a discount to make someone buy now. Cap a tier at a fixed number of vouchers and let the scarcity do the work. Put together a bundle people can only get this season. Sell a product that exists only at Christmas. Give your email list first access a day before everyone else. Add a free extra for a short, clearly dated window. Set the cap and the end date before the campaign opens, then hold them.
There is one time a discount genuinely pays, and it is Black Friday
Black Friday is the exception. Demand over that weekend is concentrated enough that a capped, time-boxed offer on your flexible products can actually widen your total margin, even at a lower headline price, once you count the vouchers that go unredeemed and the way recipients tend to spend above the face value. The work is all in the guardrails: a floor you will not sell below, a window of a few days, and a hard cap on how many you will sell. Our gift voucher pricing guide shows how to set that floor. Get the three right and the discount ends when the weekend does.
Lead with the experience and the price matters less to a gift buyer
The gift marketing that works sells the moment: the spa afternoon, dinner by the water, a night away. Someone choosing a gift is buying a feeling for the person they are giving it to, and a page that opens with the experience and the quality gives them that straight away. Describe it well enough and the buyer stops totting up the price and starts picturing the recipient opening it. Once they are there, the number on the page matters a good deal less.
None of this rules out a discount. Save it for the moments you have planned, and set the floor, the window and the cap before it goes live. Do that, and a few years from now you will still be selling vouchers at full price, while the hotel down the road is stuck teaching its customers to wait for the next code.
Frequently asked questions
Why is discounting gift vouchers a problem?
Frequent discounting trains your most loyal customers to wait for the next offer rather than buy at full price. It lifts a single campaign while flattening the ones that follow, and over time it teaches the market that your standard price is negotiable, which erodes both margin and brand positioning.
How can a hotel create urgency without a discount?
Use scarcity and timing instead of price. Cap a voucher tier at a fixed number, offer a seasonal bundle or a product sold only at one occasion, give your email list first access before the public, or attach a free add-on for a short dated window. Each gives the buyer a reason to act now without cutting the headline price.
When does discounting a gift voucher actually make sense?
When the maths supports it and the offer is controlled. Black Friday is the clearest case: demand is concentrated enough that a capped, deadline-bound discount on flexible products can raise total margin once unredeemed value and above-face spending are counted. The key is a floor price, a short window and a fixed volume cap, so the discount reads as an event rather than a permanent rate.
See how Ryse helps hotels drive gift voucher volume without discounting the brand. Book a demo.
