Uncovering the Drivers Behind Shoulder Season Travel

Tap into the mind of Noble Studios’ Vice President of Strategy and Insights, Jeff Deikis, in this Q&A that explores the process behind and learnings from Between Extremes: Targeting the Shoulder Season Traveler—the first report in our Better & Wiser™ research series.

The report is the output of a statistically significant quantitative research study developed in partnership with Wiser Insights Group. And it outlines who shoulder season travelers are (personas), what influences their travel behavior and the messages most likely to resonate with each audience.

The study uncovered seven distinct traveler personas as well as unique opportunities for destinations to incorporate into their travel and tourism marketing strategies.

In this Q&A, Jeff offers a  behind-the-scenes perspective on the research and how its actionable insights can empower Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) to drive sustainable growth during shoulder season.

Before reading the Q&A, we invite you to download the report yourself. Click here for Between Extremes: Targeting the Shoulder Season Traveler.

What were the primary objectives and scope of your research project? How did you determine these objectives?

Our travel and tourism clients put energy into attracting shoulder season travelers. “Heads in beds” is a pretty standard metric to pay attention to (among others), so there’s a natural interest in finding new audiences and messages to bring people in during these periods of lower visitation. Up until now, there hasn’t been a lot of comprehensive research into the motivations, behaviors and needs of shoulder season travel and, from our own experiences traveling during the off-peak season, we knew there’d be some insights to uncover.

When we began the study, we were just looking to help make our clients better — to gain an in-depth understanding of what motivates shoulder season leisure travel and figure out actionable ways for a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) to encourage more of it. Our goal was to uncover the main drivers behind shoulder season trip decisions and how destinations can leverage those insights through marketing and product development.

Did the research confirm any existing beliefs about shoulder season travel? What was surprising?

We knew that most conventional thinking around shoulder season travel revolved around reduced costs and reduced crowds, but we were curious to learn if there were any other smoking guns to consider or additional marketing levers we could pull to attract guests. Our research confirmed the conventional stuff — no surprise there, people are always hungry to save some cash — but we gained a much more nuanced understanding of how those benefits reinforce others which drive shoulder season motivations. One example is the role of authenticity and intimacy in travel experiences, which is directly correlated with reduced tourist volume during off-peak periods.

What was most intriguing, however, was the patterns that emerged when looking through the data. There were these distinct clusters of people, unique save for their proclivity towards shoulder season travel. Rather than continuing to just focus on the motivations around travel planning, we switched our focus to developing and profiling these traveler personas. Knowing who you’re targeting and where to apply your media spend can really maximize the efforts of your marketing campaigns.

What are the biggest challenges and untapped opportunities in shoulder season marketing? 

A major challenge is persuading folks who traditionally travel in peak summer–such as families with young children–to shift some of those trips to the shoulder season. So much of their decision making around leisure travel is rooted in their family schedules and extracurricular activities. However, there are lots of other people who typically travel during peak periods who could be swayed into a shoulder season trip if the juice was worth the squeeze. There’s real untapped potential there. Specifically, in segments with more flexibility around their schedules, such as remote workers, retirees or DINKS (“double income, no kids”).

To reach these audience segments and craft the messages that sell shoulder season travel, DMOs really need a nuanced understanding of who these travelers are and what really drives them. Promoting financial incentives is a no-brainer, but highlighting the shoulder season’s ability to deliver a more authentic travel experience could provide the extra lift needed to drive behavior change. If you pair that message with a cultural immersion package, for example, now you’ve got something that will make these folks take notice. Offering more flexibility in booking trips can go a long way, too. We learned that shoulder season travelers are more likely to take spontaneous trips — meaning a drastically shorter booking window. Making shoulder season trip planning less of a commitment by allowing late cancellations, for example, can be really attractive, as can last-minute deals and packages that leverage a financial-savings angle.

How do you define and categorize different shoulder season travel personas? 

We developed seven distinct shoulder season traveler personas, and while they shared some broad strokes — such as lower costs and lighter crowds — there were distinctly different audiences.

Unlike some peak-season travelers motivated, perhaps, by relaxation and convenience, shoulder season personas exhibited more flexibility, spontaneity and hunger for meaningful adventures. Shoulder season travelers are “bucket-list” people — they share the psychographic trait of openness to new experiences and are eager to actively explore the world. While peak travelers seek amenities, these personas want connection — an emotional sense of place that can be hard to achieve on a peak midsummer European vacation, for example. The shoulder seasons enable them to better fulfill their travel dreams at accessible costs.

How do economic factors (like budget constraints) and societal trends (like remote work) influence shoulder season travel behaviors?

Traveling for less is something everyone appreciates, so the fact that this motivates shoulder season travels is just table stakes — lower cost amplifies rather than drives the decision to travel off peak. However, the rising trend in remote and hybrid work opportunities is certainly influential in the future growth of shoulder season travel. Being able to clock in from the beach or head off on your vacation a few days early without needing to burn PTO can make a real difference and, for DMOs, it means more visitor trips overall, more trip extensions, more mid-week trips and more off-peak trips — it means more heads in more beds. 

Beyond economics, how does shoulder season travel benefit DMOs? 

First, let’s not devalue the role of economics as a powerful incentive for destinations to better market their shoulder seasons. In driving off-peak visitation, DMOs even out the distribution of  revenue streams throughout the year and make those streams both more stable as well as more predictable.

Beyond what’s coming in the front door, shoulder season travel optimizes a destination’s resources. With fewer tourists, resources aren’t stretched as thin. Local businesses and services can offer higher quality visitor experiences which, when combined with the reduced costs of shoulder season travel, can yield a higher perceived value by travelers, more word-of-mouth referrals and, ultimately, repeat visitation. A full 68 percent report the shoulder season allows for more intimate interactions with local culture, residents and traditions resulting in a more genuine travel experience. In other words, when you remove some of the pressure of the peak season, the brand equity of a destination improves.

Shoulder season travel can also promote sustainability. In promoting these less-busy periods, DMOs work to more evenly distribute tourist volume throughout the year. Reducing the critical mass of crowds reduces the strain on the natural environment and other local infrastructure, combatting the hug-of-death many destinations can experience during peak seasons. So focusing on shoulder season visitation more can also work to flatten the curve of peak-season travel and help mitigate the negative impacts of overtourism.

From the research, what trends do you think will emerge in shoulder season travel in the coming years?

As we already talked about, remote and hybrid work environments drive off-peak travel decisions — as people gain flexibility, they gain opportunity. But there’s more at play than just convenience.

After three years of travel restrictions, COVID has amplified our desire to travel and will continue to do so. People are hungry for exploration and meaningful experiences. TSA reported the summer of 2023 was the busiest on record, with 225.5 million travelers screened between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That’s a 7 percent rise over 2019’s record high and a 22 percent increase over 2022. And with China easing its Zero-Covid policy, peak season tourism traffic will continue to surge through the coming years.

Another trend with the potential to steer shoulder season travel patterns is climate change. As summers get hotter travelers will increasingly look to the more temperate spring and fall seasons to travel and explore. Destinations that attracted massive midsummer crowds — Europe, for instance — are experiencing record heat waves that can make traveling during that period pretty uncomfortable. Shifting travel windows to the cooler shoulder seasons or off peak seasons could be a logical response. So we’re paying attention to how climate change will drive behavior toward shoulder season travel.

What additional research do you believe is needed in the area of shoulder season travel?

There’s always more stones to turn over when looking at travel and tourism research. I think that it would be really interesting to look into the impact destination events have on permanently boosting shoulder season traffic without borrowing that traffic from other periods. 

For example, Oktoberfest draws between five and seven million visitors to Germany every September and October, a period that for much of the rest of Europe is considered a shoulder season. We’ve also seen Las Vegas go to great lengths to build shoulder season attractions. Building new venues to attract conventions and sports tourism has paid off. Just look at the success of Formula 1, a ten-year commitment to bring an event that attracts international visitors on a week that is historically one of the slowest for the city each year. Looking at the economic impact and value these events have on driving visitation can offer a real blueprint for other destinations looking to expand their shoulder season game.

Noble Studios recently collaborated with Wiser Insights to conduct an extensive study on travel behaviors, specifically focusing on the factors influencing travel during off-peak or “shoulder” seasons. The study successfully identified seven distinct traveler personas, providing insights into the unique motivations of each type. The full report is available here.

Additionally, we had the opportunity to discuss the study’s implications with Jeff Deikis, Noble’s Vice President of Strategy and Insights, and understand what untapped potential shoulder season travelers present to Destination Marketing Organizations. 

What were the primary objectives and scope of your research project? How did you determine these objectives?

Our travel and tourism clients put energy into attracting shoulder season travelers. “Heads in beds” is a pretty standard metric to pay attention to (among others), so there’s a natural interest in finding new audiences and messages to bring people in during these periods of lower visitation. Up until now, there hasn’t been a lot of comprehensive research into the motivations, behaviors and needs of shoulder season travel and, from our own experiences traveling during the off-peak season, we knew there’d be some insights to uncover.

When we began the study, we were just looking to help make our clients better — to gain an in-depth understanding of what motivates shoulder season leisure travel and figure out actionable ways for a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) to encourage more of it. Our goal was to uncover the main drivers behind shoulder season trip decisions and how destinations can leverage those insights through marketing and product development.

Did the research confirm any existing beliefs about shoulder season travel? What was surprising?

We knew that most conventional thinking around shoulder season travel revolved around reduced costs and reduced crowds, but we were curious to learn if there were any other smoking guns to consider or additional marketing levers we could pull to attract guests. Our research confirmed the conventional stuff — no surprise there, people are always hungry to save some cash — but we gained a much more nuanced understanding of how those benefits reinforce others which drive shoulder season motivations. One example is the role of authenticity and intimacy in travel experiences, which is directly correlated with reduced tourist volume during off-peak periods.

What was most intriguing, however, was the patterns that emerged when looking through the data. There were these distinct clusters of people, unique save for their proclivity towards shoulder season travel. Rather than continuing to just focus on the motivations around travel planning, we switched our focus to developing and profiling these traveler personas. Knowing who you’re targeting and where to apply your media spend can really maximize the efforts of your marketing campaigns.

What are the biggest challenges and untapped opportunities in shoulder season marketing? 

A major challenge is persuading folks who traditionally travel in peak summer–such as families with young children–to shift some of those trips to the shoulder season. So much of their decision making around leisure travel is rooted in their family schedules and extracurricular activities. However, there are lots of other people who typically travel during peak periods who could be swayed into a shoulder season trip if the juice was worth the squeeze. There’s real untapped potential there. Specifically, in segments with more flexibility around their schedules, such as remote workers, retirees or DINKS (“double income, no kids”).

To reach these audience segments and craft the messages that sell shoulder season travel, DMOs really need a nuanced understanding of who these travelers are and what really drives them. Promoting financial incentives is a no-brainer, but highlighting the shoulder season’s ability to deliver a more authentic travel experience could provide the extra lift needed to drive behavior change. If you pair that message with a cultural immersion package, for example, now you’ve got something that will make these folks take notice. Offering more flexibility in booking trips can go a long way, too. We learned that shoulder season travelers are more likely to take spontaneous trips — meaning a drastically shorter booking window. Making shoulder season trip planning less of a commitment by allowing late cancellations, for example, can be really attractive, as can last-minute deals and packages that leverage a financial-savings angle.

How do you define and categorize different shoulder season travel personas? 

We developed seven distinct shoulder season traveler personas, and while they shared some broad strokes — such as lower costs and lighter crowds — there were distinctly different audiences.

Unlike some peak-season travelers motivated, perhaps, by relaxation and convenience, shoulder season personas exhibited more flexibility, spontaneity and hunger for meaningful adventures. Shoulder season travelers are “bucket-list” people — they share the psychographic trait of openness to new experiences and are eager to actively explore the world. While peak travelers seek amenities, these personas want connection — an emotional sense of place that can be hard to achieve on a peak midsummer European vacation, for example. The shoulder seasons enable them to better fulfill their travel dreams at accessible costs.

How do economic factors (like budget constraints) and societal trends (like remote work) influence shoulder season travel behaviors?

Traveling for less is something everyone appreciates, so the fact that this motivates shoulder season travels is just table stakes — lower cost amplifies rather than drives the decision to travel off peak. However, the rising trend in remote and hybrid work opportunities is certainly influential in the future growth of shoulder season travel. Being able to clock in from the beach or head off on your vacation a few days early without needing to burn PTO can make a real difference and, for DMOs, it means more visitor trips overall, more trip extensions, more mid-week trips and more off-peak trips — it means more heads in more beds. 

Beyond economics, how does shoulder season travel benefit DMOs? 

First, let’s not devalue the role of economics as a powerful incentive for destinations to better market their shoulder seasons. In driving off-peak visitation, DMOs even out the distribution of  revenue streams throughout the year and make those streams both more stable as well as more predictable.

Beyond what’s coming in the front door, shoulder season travel optimizes a destination’s resources. With fewer tourists, resources aren’t stretched as thin. Local businesses and services can offer higher quality visitor experiences which, when combined with the reduced costs of shoulder season travel, can yield a higher perceived value by travelers, more word-of-mouth referrals and, ultimately, repeat visitation. A full 68 percent report the shoulder season allows for more intimate interactions with local culture, residents and traditions resulting in a more genuine travel experience. In other words, when you remove some of the pressure of the peak season, the brand equity of a destination improves.

Shoulder season travel can also promote sustainability. In promoting these less-busy periods, DMOs work to more evenly distribute tourist volume throughout the year. Reducing the critical mass of crowds reduces the strain on the natural environment and other local infrastructure, combatting the hug-of-death many destinations can experience during peak seasons. So focusing on shoulder season visitation more can also work to flatten the curve of peak-season travel and help mitigate the negative impacts of overtourism.

From the research, what trends do you think will emerge in shoulder season travel in the coming years?

As we already talked about, remote and hybrid work environments drive off-peak travel decisions — as people gain flexibility, they gain opportunity. But there’s more at play than just convenience.

After three years of travel restrictions, COVID has amplified our desire to travel and will continue to do so. People are hungry for exploration and meaningful experiences. TSA reported the summer of 2023 was the busiest on record, with 225.5 million travelers screened between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That’s a 7 percent rise over 2019’s record high and a 22 percent increase over 2022. And with China easing its Zero-Covid policy, peak season tourism traffic will continue to surge through the coming years.

Another trend with the potential to steer shoulder season travel patterns is climate change. As summers get hotter travelers will increasingly look to the more temperate spring and fall seasons to travel and explore. Destinations that attracted massive midsummer crowds — Europe, for instance — are experiencing record heat waves that can make traveling during that period pretty uncomfortable. Shifting travel windows to the cooler shoulder seasons or off peak seasons could be a logical response. So we’re paying attention to how climate change will drive behavior toward shoulder season travel.

What additional research do you believe is needed in the area of shoulder season travel?

There’s always more stones to turn over when looking at travel and tourism research. I think that it would be really interesting to look into the impact destination events have on permanently boosting shoulder season traffic without borrowing that traffic from other periods. 

For example, Oktoberfest draws between five and seven million visitors to Germany every September and October, a period that for much of the rest of Europe is considered a shoulder season. We’ve also seen Las Vegas go to great lengths to build shoulder season attractions. Building new venues to attract conventions and sports tourism has paid off. Just look at the success of Formula 1, a ten-year commitment to bring an event that attracts international visitors on a week that is historically one of the slowest for the city each year. Looking at the economic impact and value these events have on driving visitation can offer a real blueprint for other destinations looking to expand their shoulder season game.

About Jeff Deikis

Michigander-turned-West-Coast-wanderer, Jeff Deikis has over 15 years of experience leading integrated brand strategy and creative marketing teams. 

Jeff’s cross-disciplinary creative education and talent for research-informed problem solving offer him unique insight into what makes brands tick through the realms of consumer perceptions, market trends, cultural appetites and digital behaviors (to name a few). He has led multiple teams over the course of his career – creative design, marketing, brand strategy, identity development, sales, market research, and advertising strategy – and across multiple industries. 

The North Face, Patagonia, Adidas, Mountain Hardwear, Eddie Bauer, Rab, Jones Snowboards, the American Alpine Club, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, Outdoor Research and Mammoth Brewing Group are just a few of the brands Jeff has worked with over his career. 

Get to know more about Jeff in his full Noble bio.