Early booking season almost underway: Nikki shares latest trends, figures and 5 tips

Early booking season, often the most important booking period of the year, is upon us. But when exactly do holidaymakers start booking, which periods are most popular and are there differences by country? Nikki, Performance Manager at Booking Boosters, shares trends and figures from the benchmark* as well as tips on how to prepare for these important weeks.

*Trends and figures are based on averages. We notice differences per type of recreation company, where brand awareness and repeat visits play a major role.

Christmas: vacation plans in the making

Early bookings (3+ months between booking and arrival) increase in December, but the biggest spike is often seen after Christmas. During Christmas, families get together and vacation plans are discussed, leading to an increase in bookings in the following weeks. The last week of December and the entire month of January are the top weeks in terms of early bookings, before declining again starting in February.

Popular vacation periods in 2025

So, which periods will be booked the most? The summer vacations have the largest share of bookings, followed by holidays and school vacations such as Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Fronleichnam and the May vacations. Looking at the bookings already made now for 2025, week 16 (Easter), week 29 (summer vacations), and week 22 (Ascension) especially stand out.

Differences between the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium

Although summer vacation is the most popular in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium (logical, since it also contains the most weeks), there are other differences in preferences:

• The Netherlands: the Dutch guest books after the summer vacation mainly for the May vacation (often a week or longer), Ascension (Wednesday or Thursday to Sunday or Monday) and Pentecost (Friday to Monday or Tuesday).

• Germany: the German guest books after the summer vacation mainly for Fronleichnam (Wednesday or Thursday to Sunday), Pentecost (Friday to Tuesday) and the Osterferien (often a week).
• Belgium: the Belgian guest books after the summer vacations mainly for the Easter vacations (in 2025 this is 7 to 21 April) and Ascension

Booking behaviour: families & couples

Our benchmark shows that 55% of early bookers are couples with children, compared to 45% couples without children. During the popular vacation periods, the proportion of families with children logically rises to 65%.

Booking behaviour: camping pitches & vacation homes

Camping pitches are most popular during school vacations and public holidays (63%), with a peak in the summer vacations. For vacation homes, things are a bit more even: these are booked outside school vacations and public holidays (53%) as well as during these popular periods (47%).

Notable: longer stays of 7+ nights

Whereas vacationers book mostly short periods during the rest of the year, they book mostly longer stays during the early booking season. More than half (51%) book a vacation of a week or longer, which is mainly during the summer vacations. This is followed by three nights (16%) and four nights (15%) booked, for example, at Ascension and Pentecost.

Get ready for the early booking season with these 5 tips

#1 Be flexible in arrival and departure days

Offer different options for arrival and departure days, especially during holidays and school vacations. Give your guests a choice so they don't drop out. Example: guests often look for Thursday through Sunday during Ascension, as well as Wednesday through Sunday, Wednesday through Monday, Thursday through Monday and Friday through Sunday.

In addition, we see that Monday in general is becoming increasingly popular as an arrival day (+23%). Friday is still the most popular arrival day, but this share is decreasing.

#2 Take foreign vacations into account

Germany and Belgium have holidays that we do not have in the Netherlands, or have longer vacations, while we have only one day off in the Netherlands. Think of the German Fronleichnam, the German Osterferien and the Belgian Easter vacations. Make sure that German and Belgian guests can also book their vacations flexibly. For example, at Easter, the German guest often looks for a whole week from Friday to Friday.

#3 Optimise your prices continuously

Make sure your prices are in line with market demand and the offer at your park. In addition, compare your prices with those of competitors so as not to be too expensive or too cheap. Too low a price may cause you to fill up too quickly, while too high a price may send your guests to your neighbour.

#4 Optimise your website for early booking behaviour

Make sure your website is responsive to search and booking behaviour during the early booking season. Write or optimise your period pages, highlight popular periods on your homepage and place them as "highlighted periods" in search & book.

#5 Be visible on time with the right campaigns and budgets

Make sure your marketing communications align with early bookings by using the right text and images. Put your early booking campaigns live on time and increase budgets for maximum visibility, especially in late December and January.

Booking Boosters is ready to boost bookings

Booking Boosters supports vacation parks on the above five points. We make sure your website and campaigns are optimised for the early booking season. The most important vacation periods are found on your website, and the early booking campaigns in Meta and Google are ready or already live. In addition, we ensure the right budget at the right time, so that you are fully visible online during the most important booking period of the year. At many parks, we see that search behaviour is already increasing, and we have already increased the budgets. We expect this increase in searches to lead to actual bookings later in December. Finally, we advise parks on arrival and departure days and prices.

We do all this based on data about search and booking behaviour and guest information, among other things. Do you want insight into this for your park? Check out the possibilities of our BI tool, Booking Analytics.