Winter Is Coming: Smart Hotel Low Season Planning

After more than 20 years working in digital marketing, hotel distribution, and hospitality technology, and the last 8 years building and running a hotel-focused agency in Phuket, I can say this with absolute certainty:

Low season doesn’t hurt hotels. Poor preparation does.

Every year, Thailand’s hotel market goes through the same cycle. Demand peaks, confidence rises, rates hold. Then the weather changes, flights shift, European holidays end, and suddenly inboxes fill with panic:

• “Bookings have dropped.”
• “Competitors are discounting.”
• “What should we do?”

The uncomfortable truth is that none of this is unexpected. Thailand’s tourism economy is one of the most seasonal in the world, yet most hotels still behave as if low season is an unforeseen problem rather than a predictable commercial phase.

This article is not a checklist or a tactical playbook. It is a strategic perspective on how boutique and independent hotels should think about shoulder and low seasons, and why the hotels that perform best during these periods almost always start planning long before demand softens.

Seasonality in Thailand Is Structural, Not Situational

Thailand’s seasonality is driven by far more than rain. It is shaped by airline capacity planning, school holidays, long-haul travel calendars, domestic mobility, and global economic confidence. These forces repeat every year with remarkable consistency.

High season rewards optimisation.
Low season punishes indecision.

Yet many hotels treat both periods the same, chasing occupancy through price, reacting to competitors, and allowing OTAs to dictate value perception. This approach is especially dangerous for boutique and independent hotels, where margins are thinner and brand value is more fragile.

Large chains can absorb rate dilution across portfolios. Independent hotels often cannot.

Why Boutique Hotels Feel Low Season More Deeply

Boutique and independent properties often experience low season more acutely because they operate without safety nets. They rely heavily on:

• A limited number of room nights
• Fewer source markets
• Smaller marketing budgets
• Stronger emotional attachment to rate integrity

When bookings slow, pressure builds quickly, and pressure leads to poor decisions. This is when hotels:

• Drop public rates too early
• Open discount-heavy OTA campaigns
• Undermine direct booking strategies
• Train the market to wait for deals

Low season mistakes don’t disappear when high season returns. They linger in rate expectations, channel behaviour, and brand positioning.

Revenue Management Changes in Low Season, Or at least It Should

Peak season revenue management is about optimisation: fine-tuning rates, maximising yield, pushing RevPAR. Low season revenue management is about commercial intent.

It forces hotels to answer harder questions:

• Which guests do we actually want?
• Which demand is profitable, and which is not?
• How much brand value are we willing to trade for short-term cash flow?
• Which channels support recovery, and which delay it?

A hotel that enters low season without answering these questions will default to the easiest lever: price. That is almost always the wrong lever.

Occupancy Is Not the Goal, Stability Is

One of the most damaging beliefs in hospitality is that any occupancy is good occupancy. During low season, this mindset leads to:

• Over-discounting
• Short-stay churn
• High operational cost per room
• Long-term ADR erosion

The real objective in the low season is stable, predictable demand at defendable rates. This often means:

• Fewer check-ins
• Longer stays
• Clear segmentation
• Stronger control over distribution

Hotels that accept this reality early make calmer, smarter decisions.

Thailand’s Low Season Is Not One Market, It’s Many

Another critical mistake is treating low season demand as homogeneous. In reality, Thailand’s shoulder and low seasons are supported by very different segments:

• Domestic and regional travellers
• Long-stay and semi-residential guests
• Remote workers and digital nomads
• Repeat international visitors
• Niche interest travellers (wellness, diving, culture, retreats)

Each of these segments responds to different value propositions, not just different prices. A single public discount cannot speak to all of them, and trying to do so usually damages your positioning with all of them.

Planning Backwards: How High-Performing Hotels Approach Low Season

The best-performing hotels do not “launch” low season offers when bookings drop. They prepare frameworks well in advance. Eight to twelve weeks before demand softens, they review:

• Previous year pacing patterns
• Cancellation behaviour by market
• Length-of-stay trends
• Channel contribution quality, not just volume

At this stage, no rates change publicly. The work is analytical, not reactive. Six to eight weeks out, controlled demand is activated:

• Direct-only value adds
• Early long-stay positioning
• CRM-driven offers to known guests
• Segmented visibility, not mass exposure

By the time low season officially begins, these hotels are not scrambling. They are adjusting.

Dynamic Pricing Is Not Aggressive Discounting

Dynamic pricing is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the low season. Dropping rates faster than competitors is not dynamic pricing, it is surrender. In shoulder and low seasons, pricing flexibility should:

• Reward longer stays rather than early bookings
• Protect publicly visible rates
• Shift value into inclusions, upgrades, and flexibility
• Operate quietly, not loudly

Hotels that chase competitor pricing signals often end up in a race to the bottom that nobody wins.

Email Marketing: The Quiet Engine of Low Season Performance

If there is one channel that consistently outperforms during the low season, it is email. Not because it is flashy, but because it is trusted. Email allows hotels to:

• Speak differently to different guests
• Reward loyalty without public discounting
• Recover abandoned demand
• Re-engage past guests with context and relevance

Most hotels underuse this channel, relying instead on paid media and OTA promotions that are far more expensive and far less controlled. Low season rewards hotels that own their guest relationships.

Social Media’s Role Shifts in Low Season

Low season is not the time to aggressively sell rooms on social media. Instead, it is the time to reinforce:

• Brand personality
• Experience and atmosphere
• Space, calm, and pace
• Emotional connection to place

Boutique hotels are uniquely well positioned here, but only if they resist the urge to compete on price in public spaces. Low season content should build desire, not desperation.

What We’ve Learned From Recovery Campaigns

Across multiple low and shoulder season recovery projects in Thailand, one pattern repeats itself. The hotels that recover fastest:

• Planned earlier
• Discounted less publicly
• Relied more on owned channels
• Segmented demand intelligently
• Protected brand confidence

The hotels that struggled longest almost always reacted late and loud. The difference was never technology or budget. It was mindset.

Low Season Is a Stress Test, and an Opportunity

Low season exposes weaknesses in:

• Revenue logic
• Distribution discipline
• Brand clarity
• Marketing leadership

But it also creates opportunity. Hotels that navigate low season well often:

• Enter high season with stronger pricing confidence
• Recover ADR faster
• Reduce OTA dependency over time
• Build more resilient commercial systems

In other words, low season does not define your year, your preparation does.

Final Thoughts

In the immortal words of John Snow, Winter is coming. It always is. The question is not whether your hotel will feel the effects of low season, but whether you will meet it with:

• Strategy instead of panic
• Clarity instead of emotion
• Structure instead of reaction

At The Percentage Company, we believe low season deserves the same level of commercial thinking as high season, if not more. Because in Thailand’s highly seasonal market, the hotels that plan for the quiet months are the ones that win the loud ones.

If you’re reading this and recognising familiar challenges, that’s not by accident. At The Percentage Company, we specialise in helping boutique and independent hotels in Thailand build year-round commercial strategies, not just short-term campaigns. 

Our work sits at the intersection of revenue management, digital marketing, distribution, and hotel technology, designed specifically for seasonal markets like Phuket, Chiang Mai, Samui, and beyond. We don’t sell tactics in isolation; we help owners and operators create clarity, structure, and confidence before low season arrives. 

If you want to stop reacting to demand drops and start planning for them properly, we’d be happy to have a conversation.