Promoting Off/Shoulder-Season Destinations

There are various, converging reasons why I can see clients asking you to promote visits to them in traditional off or shoulder-season periods. The first is obvious and well-established: being quieter then, they could do with a spurt of bookings, thank you very much.

An additional, ever more relevant rationale concerns weather. This summer, notoriously, saw not just many more terrible wildfires across southern Europe than ever before (at least as far as I judged it), but just as many tales of atrociously high, 40C-plus temperatures around the continent. Subsequently, people cancelled summer holidays for fear of it being too hot. The obvious reaction is to visit in an historically cooler period — in the case of Europe, March through to June, and September into November.

That ties into the third factor, which might be the key one. Sticking to the European example, changing weather and booking patterns are prompting hotels to stay open for longer windows, and airlines to fly more in spring, autumn or winter than they once did.

If some or all of these things happen — or even if not — and you are tasked with promoting a typically quieter season, there’s a clear pitfall to sidestep. Basically, make sure you think about USPs for your hotel or destination versus other rivals which may be promoting the same period.

Because, you see, so many press releases about off/shoulder-season visits simply go with “it’s quiet” and “crowd-free”. Very likely they’ll champion the cheaper rates. Problem is, these factors are true with every off/shoulder-season option. What us journalists are considering is: why promote your one? What makes that special?

Possibilities might be: a temporary wildlife spectacle; a brilliant festival (everywhere has festivals, so you need a stand-out); a food or dish that’s only in season at this time; availability when there is never otherwise any.

One final thing to consider is delving into the weather data. Say March/April is monsoon season in Country A. Has that actually been the case for the last few years? Or has it actually been pretty sunny for lots of the time? With the weather so confused these days, there’s every chance of that. You could use a site like Time & Date to find historical data from the last few years to build your case.