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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Travel
Sarah Marsh Consumer Affairs Correspondent

How ‘shoulder season’ became the new popular time for tourists

Europe Intrepid Intrepid Travel
A young woman in a lace vest, shorts, baseball cap and sunglasses holds a cloth parasol over herself and the young woman next to her, also in shorts and a baseball cap, in front of the columns of the Acropolis in Athens during a heatwave on 12 June
The Acropolis was closed for five hours on 12 June due to a heatwave of 39C in Athens and higher in central Greece. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

It will be a familiar scene for many in the next few weeks: a busy airport packed with people setting off on their summer break. But tourists may find peak travel periods are no longer so predictable now that more people are going away during shoulder season – the time between a region’s most popular months and the offseason.

Travel companies are reporting an increase in demand between March and early May, and September to October, as holidaymakers try to avoid heatwaves and overtourism.

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