Setting season dates for a rate sheet: where low, shoulder and peak begin and end

A season is a named date band on your rate sheet that carries one set of prices, stay rules and cancellation terms. Set its edges from three years of your own occupancy and booking pace, place them on whole weeks, and give moving holidays their own band instead of moving the season.

Next year's rate sheet is due at the agency in October, and the argument in the room is whether the season starts on 1 May or 15 May. Both dates are guesses until somebody opens three years of occupancy. This article shows you how to build the hotel season dates rate calendar from your own history: where to draw the edges, why they should fall on whole weeks, how to handle holidays that move, and how many bands a small team can actually maintain.

What is a season on a rate sheet actually for?#

A season is a named date band that carries one price set, one set of stay rules and one cancellation policy. Its job is to let you commit to a price before you know the demand.

Three things get confused on many sheets, and separating them is the first fix. The season is a date band. The rate plan is what the price includes, such as room only or bed and breakfast. The restriction is a condition on the booking, such as a two-night minimum or closed to arrival. One season can carry several rate plans, and each plan can carry its own restrictions.

The middle of a band is easy. The edges are where money is lost, because that is where a wrong price meets a real booking. A season is published to agencies and to your own website months ahead, so the band must also be wide enough that you are not repricing it every week.

Seasons drive operations too: staffing, opening a second restaurant, pool heating, entertainment. A band that exists in the rate sheet but not in the operations plan will be wrong on the ground. And every band is a row multiplied across room types, board types and channels, so each addition is another place for a loading error.

Seasons are not market segments. A tour operator, a direct guest and a corporate account can all book the same band at different net prices.

How do you find your season edges in your own data?#

Plot three years of your own occupancy and booking pace by week, and put an edge where the level changes and stays changed for several weeks. Start with months to see the shape, then move to weeks: the shape is monthly, but the money sits in the weeks.

Use three years. One year shows a shape, two show a repeat, three let you see which year was the anomaly and why. Compare the same week across years, not the same date, because school breaks and religious holidays move.

Read booking pace as well as final occupancy. A week that fills late is a different pricing problem from a week that fills early, even when both end at the same number. Ask two separate questions: where does occupancy change, and where does the rate you can actually achieve change? An edge usually needs both, or a clear operational reason.

Ignore one-off events when drawing the base shape. Give a fair, a concert or a closure its own band or its own restriction instead of bending the season around it. Write the rule down in words, for example "peak begins in the week containing 15 July", so next year's review compares like with like.

If you want a market reference next to your own figure, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism publishes an occupancy rate for Ministry-certified (İşletme and Basit) facilities: 49.54% for 2025, against 51.91% in 2024 (Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, accommodation statistics 2025). Note that the Ministry does not state whether it counts rooms or beds. For the wider monthly picture, see Türkiye's tourism season month by month, read from the official data.

Why should season edges fall on whole weeks?#

Because guests, flights, agencies and housekeeping all work in weeks. A mid-week edge splits a single stay across two prices and creates a rule nobody can quote from memory.

A stay that crosses an edge needs a crossing rule. Either price every night by the band it falls in, or price the whole stay by the arrival date. Choose one and apply it on every channel. Nightly pricing is more accurate and harder to explain. Arrival-date pricing is simpler and can be badly wrong on a long stay that runs from a cheap band into an expensive one.

Match the edge to your changeover day. If most bookings run Saturday to Saturday, put edges on Saturday; a Wednesday edge prices the same week two ways. Agencies and tour operators quote per week and per room night, so a mid-week edge forces them to build a split quote, and split quotes get mistyped. School breaks and holiday flights move in weeks, so a week boundary tracks the demand shift better than a fixed date.

Print the crossing rule on the sheet itself, in one sentence, so the front desk and the agency read the same instruction.

How do moving holidays and school breaks fit into the calendar?#

They do not move your seasons. Give each one its own named band with fixed dates for that year, and let the season resume on either side.

Religious holidays move against the Gregorian calendar each year, so a band defined as "the second week of April" will be wrong in most years. School breaks are set centrally and can differ by province and by school level, so check the official announcement for the year you are pricing rather than reusing last year's dates.

A holiday band should carry its own minimum stay, its own deposit rule and often its own cancellation terms, because the risk profile of those nights is different. The weeks immediately before and after a holiday are not the holiday: they often behave like the season they sit in, or worse, because the market has emptied around the break.

Name the band by its dates and its status, not by its position in the year, so the sheet stays readable when the dates move. Do not publish guessed dates. Leave the band marked pending until the official dates are announced, and confirm any pricing or contract consequence with your legal adviser. To plan ahead, see planning bayram and public holiday rates and restrictions early and one demand calendar for holidays, school breaks, fairs and events.

How many seasons can a small team actually keep?#

As many as you can review, load and explain. A workable starting point is three to five bands, set by how many one person can review, load and explain; the limit is maintenance, not ambition.

Count the rows before you add a band: room types multiplied by board types, occupancy rules, bands and channels. Each new band multiplies all of them. Every band is a place where a price can be loaded wrong, and a wrong price in a published sheet is either a booking you must honour or an argument with a guest.

Use restrictions inside a band before you invent a new band. A two-night minimum, closed to arrival or a non-refundable condition often does the work of a separate season. Apply one test: can a single person explain the whole sheet, band by band, in ten minutes without notes? If not, the sheet is too fine for the team that has to run it.

A simple structure of low, shoulder and peak, with holiday bands cut out of them, is easier to keep than five overlapping bands with similar names. Keep the same structure for several years, because a structure that changes every year destroys the comparability of your own history. For the off-peak bands in particular, see how a seasonal hotel prices and sells shoulder and low season.

How do you publish the sheet so the edges do not drift?#

Publish one dated version, state the validity window and the crossing rule, and change it only on a schedule you have announced.

Version and date every sheet, and say which version supersedes which. An undated rate sheet turns into an argument with an agency six weeks later. State the currency, the tax basis and whether prices are per room or per person, and send tax questions to your accountant instead of settling them inside the sheet.

Give agencies the band table as a table, not as prose buried in an email, so the start and end dates cannot be misread. Keep one source of truth: the website, the agencies and the front desk must read the same edges, or you will sell two prices for the same night. Announce changes with a lead time you can defend, and record why each change was made. Contracted rates and published rates can differ, but the band a date falls in should not; check the contract wording with your legal adviser.

When should you review the season calendar?#

Once a year at a fixed date, before the next sheet is contracted, plus one short check in the middle of the season.

Fix the review date against your own calendar, after the season closes and before agencies contract, rather than in a month that suits nobody. Compare plan with outcome week by week: where did the edge land wrong, in which direction, and by how much? Change one edge at a time and write down the reason, so next year you know whether the change worked or the market simply moved.

Keep the old sheets. They are your only record of what you actually offered, and they are the baseline for every later comparison. Treat structural change, such as a new flight route, a new property nearby or a road closure, as a hypothesis to test, not a fact to price on. Make the review a document, not a meeting: one page, dated, with the changes and the reasons, is enough.

What to do next#

Open three years of your own weekly occupancy and booking pace this week, draw the shape on one page, and put a first draft of next year's edges on whole weeks before the sheet reaches any agency. Once the bands, the crossing rule and the holiday exceptions live in one dated document, you can defend it, review it and hand it to a new revenue manager without starting again.