Most destinations run near capacity for part of the year and well below it for the rest. A visitor added in the shoulder creates net new value, which is why shoulder season event scheduling can make the same event worth more to the country.
A visitor added in the peak takes a room that was going to be sold and a table that was going to be occupied; the extra spend is mostly a transfer. A visitor added in the shoulder occupies a room that would otherwise be empty, is served by staff who would otherwise be idle, and leaks less, because the local supply chain has room to serve them without importing.
For a candidate date, test three things. First, the demand the event would bring, by origin and stay. Second, the capacity already committed on that date across hotels, transport and venues. Third, the displacement the event would cause among visitors who were coming anyway. Run that for the peak date and the shoulder date, and the shoulder usually wins on retained value, even when the gross spend is lower. Less of it is displaced and more of it stays.
The date is usually set by the rights holder, the venue, or habit, and the economic case is produced afterwards. Put the calculation first and the date becomes a choice with a number on it. The calculation is small once the data is connected. Done from scratch for one event, it takes three months and a blank page. Connected, it runs for every date on the table in minutes.
Pacing the whole calendar to absorptive capacity extends the gain from one moved event across the year. Place each event in the weeks where the calendar has room, so caterers, drivers, and airlift scale with the demand rather than importing to meet it. Done across a year, the local supply chain ends the cycle larger than it started and keeps more of every later event. The destination grows the year rather than the peak.
The same event delivers more retained value in the week the place has room for it, and a government can test which week that is before it signs the contract. The argument is in one system, the size of the prize. The page for event portfolio optimisation sets out how the calendar is tested as a whole. For further reading, see the OECD Global Events Toolkit.
For the next event date on the table, ask for the retained value at that date and at one shoulder alternative, with the displacement and the capacity stated for each. Then do it for the whole calendar.
A hotel pipeline decision is usually made on an occupancy trend, extrapolated forward. That answers a different question from the one a planner, a developer, or an investor faces: is the market short of rooms overall, or short of rooms on the 18 nights a year when demand peaks?
A new route photographs well on launch day. Whether it is still flying in year three, without deep discounting, and still worth the airport incentive that started it, is a quieter question, and it is the one that comes up at renewal.
International visitors to the United States fell 4.2% in 2025, the first annual decline since the pandemic, while worldwide travel grew. The spending did not disappear. It moved. Five economies are absorbing most of it, and the shift now looks structural.
Oman has announced plans for a high-altitude destination at Jabal al Akhdar, combining sports training, wellness, and tourism at 2,400 metres. It is the kind of project a Gulf government can commit to at once, and the kind that lives or dies on a demand case nobody has yet published.
A race track, an arena, a stadium: each is built for a peak it reaches a few dozen times a year. The gap between peak and off-peak operational need is the commercial challenge behind every sports-anchored development, and the reason mixed use is the answer rather than the fashion.
International arrivals to the United States fell 4.2% in 2025 while worldwide travel grew about 4%. Living Lab’s displacement model puts the forgone spending at roughly US$50bn, and about US$10.6bn of it within reach of five economies. Each is limited by a different constraint.
