Compare hotel rates across seasons.
Hotel seasonality is usually quoted as a high season premium over low, which for popular destinations commonly runs 80 to 150 percent — more than doubling the rate for identical rooms. The more useful figure is what shoulder season captures. If shoulder sits at 140 between a low of 95 and a high of 210, it captures about 61 percent of the total available saving while typically retaining most of the weather and nearly all of the opening hours. That capture percentage is the number worth optimising, because it quantifies the classic travel trade-off rather than just restating the price gap.
High season premium
Premium % = (high rate - low rate) / low rate x 100
Shoulder capture
Capture % = (high rate - shoulder rate) / (high rate - low rate) x 100
How much of the available low-season discount you get by travelling in shoulder season instead of peak. A high capture percentage means shoulder is priced close to low season and is excellent value; a low one means the operator treats shoulder as almost peak and you may as well pick your dates on weather alone.
Because supply is fixed and demand is concentrated into school holidays and reliable weather windows. A hotel cannot add rooms for August, so the only way to clear the market is price. It also has to earn most of its annual revenue in a few months, which peak pricing is designed to do.