Whatever happened to the off-season?
The heat, mobs and high prices of recent summers are making off-season travel more popular - perhaps too popular, some say, as they watch prices rise and crowds grow
“September is the new August,” said Jack Ezon, the founder of Embark Beyond, a high-end travel agency based in New York City, explaining that the frenzy for European travel stretched the calendar. Nearly a third of his clients who regularly travel to the Mediterranean in July and August rescheduled for June, September or October.
Key takeaways
- Booking shoulder season was once travel’s best-kept secret, but more people are catching on to the trend;
- School calendars still largely dictate the biggest peaks in travel annually, but the dips are not as dramatic - in numbers and in rates;
- Summer will always be peak season, but we’ll see more off-peak travel in fall, winter and spring so those valleys may be less deep.
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