Turn October Trends into Bookings & Revenue

Stay ahead this October, turn seasonal trends into repeatable revenue. See what works

🌞 Welcome To This Week's Newsletter

In October, cultural cues, cooler evenings, and market conditioning all combine to create an expectation that properties will deliver something seasonally relevant and novel.

As cooler evenings draw in, night tourism is gaining ground, from heated terraces and acoustic comfort dining to after-dark tours and wellness events, offering operators fresh ways to extend dwell time and capture additional spend.

Ready for the full playbook? Upgrade to VIP to unlock the complete October Marketing Playbook, including a Strategic Action Plan and exclusive VIP Resources to turn these insights into bookings and revenue.

📄 On the Menu this week

• Buyer Behaviour in October

• 🔒 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

• 🔒 Platform Updates

• 🔒 Marketing Dates for Your Diary

• 🔒 Strategic Action Plan

Let’s Check In ☕

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📌 Who Should Read This Strategy Briefing

• Marketing Manager or Brand Lead – planning themed campaigns, aligning content with buyer psychology, and pacing promotions for maximum intent match.

• Head of Guest Experience or F&B Manager – crafting seasonal environments, curating sensory experiences, and ensuring each offer lands emotionally as well as functionally.

• Digital Content Creator or Social Media Coordinator – turning campaign concepts into content assets with relevance, precision, and local impact.

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🍂 Buyer Behaviour in October

Customers enter October already immersed in a shared seasonal vocabulary promoted across retail, food and beverage, and travel marketing, including pumpkins, foliage, and cosy nights. The mere exposure effect reinforces this, a psychological principle where repeated seasonal cues increase familiarity and positive association. When these signals are echoed in your offers, you connect with an audience already primed to act.

Seasonal cues in October train guests to look for themed packages. Without them, a property can seem disconnected from the moment and the market.

This seasonal mindset becomes particularly important during the shoulder season, where guest behaviour shifts and demand patterns become less predictable.

Shoulder season sits between peak summer demand and the festive rush, a period where guest behaviour changes, but many venues still run on high-season habits. Demand is typically front-loaded, with early October momentum from September giving way to a sharp mid-month drop before a modest lift around half-term and Halloween.

Weekends often hold steady, but midweek performance depends heavily on the return-to-work market. When corporate travel or group bookings are absent, some operators default to low-margin discounts that erode Average Daily Rate (ADR) and weaken yield.

At the same time, guests are actively researching across AI search, OTAs, traditional search engines and social platforms, often with clear purchase intent. This creates two operational lanes: value-seeking volume, where OTAs and price-led queries dominate, and experience-led premium, where social proof and video tip higher-spend decisions.

• 80% of travellers visit an OTA at some point before a purchase and

• OTAs account for 40% of path-to-purchase page views.

• 57% use social media for trip planning and

• 62% of those make a specific decision after viewing content;

• The experiences market exceeds $1 trillion with younger travellers willing to splurge; and

• Google reports AI features in Search, Maps and Lens are already being used to plan trips.

Autumn’s travel shift toward cooler-climate “coolcations” and off-peak cultural trips is strengthening this divide. The strongest October results come when venues anchor weekend bundles for leisure guests, then use targeted tactics such as persona-segmented midweek offers or short-form video to capture business travellers and flexible bookers. This fills softer periods without resorting to discounts.

Not every weekend is equal. Anchored weekends bring demand. Soft weekends require you to build it.

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🌙 Themed Offers & Night Tourism

Noctourism, or travel experiences focused on after-dark activities, is rapidly transitioning from niche to mainstream. Nearly two-thirds of travellers are now considering holiday experiences after sunset, including stargazing, night markets, and illuminated tours. Evenings provide atmospheric relief, intimacy, and novelty that daytime cannot match.

Evening experiences tap into deeper travel motivations, with travellers embracing night bookings to avoid daytime heat or crowds while also seeking cooler and less crowded hours.

Proven themes include moonlit dining, historic ghost walks, night markets, stargazing under dark skies, and spa or wellness rituals by torchlight, each designed to elevate guest experience and allow premium pricing.

✨ Astro-Tourism Dates: Oct–Dec 2025

• October 7: Full Hunter's Moon

• October 8: Draconids Meteor Shower peak

• October 22: Orionids Meteor Shower peak

• November 5: Full Beaver Moon

• November 10: Southern Taurids Meteor Shower peak

• November 12: Northern Taurids Meteor Shower peak

• November 17: Leonids Meteor Shower peak

• December 4: Full Cold Moon

• December 14: Geminids Meteor Shower peak

• December 22: Ursids Meteor Shower peak

Move from insight to execution. Upgrade to VIP to get the complete October Action Plan, plus the full back-library of strategies for every season. You'll also gain direct access to my expertise in the comments to solve your specific challenges, ensuring your marketing strategy is always on point.