The Secret to a Successful Shoulder Season in Hospitality

Running a hotel requires a great understanding of all the seasons.

While many hotels come with strong strategies for peak and off-peak seasons, they overlook shoulder season.

That shouldn’t be the case, at all.

Shoulder season in hospitality is as important as any other period of the year.

Now, for those who have never heard about it, shoulder season is real. And going forward in this blog, I will walk you through what is a shoulder period in a hotel, how can shoulder season affect hotel revenue, and all the other nitty-gritty.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the blog.

What Is Shoulder Season in Hospitality?

Shoulder season in hospitality is between the peak and off-peak season. Every part of the world has its own shoulder seasons; it varies from hotel to hotel based on the destination.

For instance, based on the location, if summer is the peak season for your hotel and winter is the low season, then spring and autumn are the shoulder seasons.

What makes shoulder season a bit complicated to deal with is that it has elements from other periods as well. During shoulder season, hotels don’t receive a lot of reservations but it still has some advantages.

How does Shoulder Season affect hotels?

Unlike off-peak season, shoulder season isn’t the time when business is low. However, being an overlooked period, hotels don’t really have a strategy to keep the business floating.

Meaning, if hoteliers fail to create a framework, their property might witness a drastic drop in demand.

Let me explain it better with a scenario.

Roshan is a hotelier based out of Coorg, India. Over the years, he has learned the skills of pricing rooms based on the season and earning better profit. However, he has always been inconsiderate about the shoulder season.  

But then his perception changed when his hotel was abysmally impacted by the shoulder season. There was hardly any booking and he witnessed severe loss. Turns out, the other hotels in the vicinity tweaked their strategy and attracted more travelers.

Being a median travel season; it’s not easy to predict how shoulder season is going to turn out for hotel businesses. For some, it may become a great deal while for others it could be another off-peak period of the year.

How Can Hotels Make the Most Out of Shoulder Season?

To cope or increase hotel occupancy during shoulder season, hoteliers must be proactive and incorporate solid strategies to consistently attract travelers.

Following are some of the points that every hotelier must keep in mind while preparing for the shoulder season:

1. Identify your shoulder seasons

Experienced hoteliers are already aware of all the seasons of a hospitality business.

However, it’s a little difficult for new or budding hoteliers to identify when exactly the shoulder season is. Why so? Because the booking flow during shoulder season is significantly unpredictable.

Now, if you want to keep your hotel profitable during this particular time of the year, the first and foremost thing to do is identify it. There are shoulder seasons for both the spring and fall; but again, it depends on the destination.

So, analyze your current and past booking flow, traveler preferences, and market behavior, and determine when exactly you witnessed shoulder season.

2. Plan everything in advance

Now that you know which time of the year is shoulder season for your hotel, it’s time to be prepared — IN ADVANCE.

What I mean by ‘in advance’ is that you cannot start strategizing a day, week, or month before. You have to start working on things during your peak or off-peak season.

Be it in terms of marketing, pricing, or operation, everything has to be rolled out.

Keep in mind, that travelers are becoming smarter. They now understand that shoulder seasons go a little lighter on their pocket, which is why it is becoming more and more attractive.

Therefore, do not procrastinate and wait for the last moment. Start planning for your hotel’s shoulder season as soon as you can.

3. Set realistic goals for shoulder season

Like I said above, shoulder seasons are unpredictable. And this is why you have to understand that the goals you set for this particular time of the year have to be realistic.

When I say realistic goals, I mean the goals you can reach based on your hotel’s abilities.

For example, at the beginning of the year, you set a goal of 10% growth in terms of revenue. Now, based on your analysis, you could divide it among all the seasons. The off-peak season could have 1-2%, peak season could make 4-5%, and shoulder season could do 3-4%.

You cannot simply set a goal that in this shoulder season your hotel is going to make 5-6% more revenue. It doesn’t work that way. You have to keep the entire year in mind.

4. Turn to seasonal pricing and packages

Seasonal pricing and packages are a great way to make the most out of the shoulder season.

For those who aren’t aware, seasonal pricing is all about pricing your hotel’s rooms and services depending on the season.

For example, during peak season, you set a higher room rate due to the rising demand. But when it’s an off-peak season, you set lower prices to acquire more reservations.

Now you must be wondering how should you price your rooms during shoulder season?

Well, I don’t like to complicate things, and that’s why keeping your room rate lower than your peak season but still higher than your low season should ideally work.

However, I suggest you do the research and math, and then come up with something that you believe is going to work.  

Not to mention, you can also create exclusive packages to attract more travelers to your hotel.

5. Deliver the right message through marketing

Marketing is supremely crucial for a hotel the entire year. However, the messaging needs to keep on changing depending on the season.

Meaning, the messaging you used for the peak season is not going to work for the shoulder season. The reason is that travelers’ and guests’ preferences keep on changing.

Those who visited your hilltop hotel during the peak period might not visit your property for the same reason during shoulder season. Therefore, it is important to understand the motivation of your guests.

I recently wrote an article on the role of psychology in hotel marketing. Do give it a read to make your hotel marketing better.

6. Leverage revenue management strategies

Revenue management is a blessing in disguise for hotels of all shapes and sizes. It doesn’t matter what time of the year it is; revenue management can turn into a revenue-generating machine.

For instance, imagine a hotel without any sort of pricing strategy. Throughout the years, it has had the same room rate. However, the hotel has come across the concept of dynamic pricing and now it keeps on changing the room rates based on the market condition or demand.

But there’s still a sad story, it’s not seeing any significant result. The revenue is still the same — dull!!

What could be the reason behind this fiasco? Well, the answer is the lack of in-depth understanding.

This is where revenue management comes into the picture.

A revenue manager or a revenue management system collects and organizes data related to a hotel’s revenue, sales, and other financial aspects. Next up, based on the analysis, it comes up with pricing that is likely to attract more guests to the hotel and boost the overall revenue.

So, if you think that revenue management is amiss at your hotel then it’s time to turn to it.