What Is Shoulder Season? 10 Airbnb Tips for More Bookings

Source

AirDNA What Is Shoulder Season? 10 Airbnb Tips for More Bookings

What It Says

Shoulder season—the transitional period between a market's peak and off-season—presents a distinct set of traveler behaviors. Unlike the off-season, where demand is virtually non-existent, shoulder season still holds active booking potential. However, performance dynamics vary heavily by market type:

• Highly Seasonal Markets (e.g., Breckenridge, Gulf Shores): Experience sharp drops in both occupancy and Average Daily Rate (ADR). In these locations, shoulder season nightly rates plunge 30% to 37% below peak levels.
• Steady Year-Round Markets (e.g., Maui, Gatlinburg, San Jose/Palo Alto): ADRs hold steady at roughly 90% of peak. The dip in these markets is characterized almost entirely by fewer booked nights rather than lower rates.

Why It Matters

Applying a uniform pricing and calendar playbook year-round leads to lost revenue. In steady markets like Maui, offering deep discounts during shoulder months needlessly dilutes margins on nights that would have booked anyway. Conversely, in highly seasonal markets like Breckenridge, failing to drop rates and minimum-stay requirements will result in an empty calendar.

Furthermore, shoulder season guests have a much tighter booking window. For example, in Breckenridge, over a third of shoulder-season nights in 2025 were booked within four weeks of check-in, compared to less than a quarter during peak season. Operators must understand these shifting windows to avoid discounting too early.

Useful Signals

• The 30% Rule of Thumb: If you operate in a highly seasonal ski or beach market, expect to discount rates by 30% to 37% to remain competitive.
• The Weekend/Weekday Split: Shoulder season demand often consolidates into weekend trips. Operators should maintain higher rates for Fridays and Saturdays while applying deeper discounts exclusively to Sunday through Thursday nights.
• The 3-Night Pivot: In seasonal destinations like Hilton Head, peak-season stays are dominated by week-long bookings, but shoulder-season trips of three nights or fewer jump to over 40% of the market. Lowering minimum-stay requirements is essential to appear in these search results.
• Gap-Night Revenue Lift: Utilizing a Revenue Management System (RMS) to automatically lower prices and minimum-stay rules on calendar "gaps" saves an average of two empty nights per month.

STR Tech Report Take

For short-term rental operators and property managers, shoulder season is the ultimate test of dynamic pricing and property management software (PMS) configurations. Relying on static seasonal rules is no longer viable.

Technology vendors should focus on helping hosts automate "gap-night" rules and detect localized event-driven demand spikes. As highlighted by AirDNA's promotion of its pricing tool, Adapt, the future of shoulder-season revenue management lies in hyper-local, real-time booking curve analysis rather than broad historical averages. Operators should also use this period to update their listings' visual assets, swapping out summer pool photos for cozy, season-appropriate imagery (e.g., fireplaces, hot tubs) to match the autumn or spring travel mindset.

Original Source

What Is Shoulder Season? 10 Airbnb Tips for More Bookings