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Holiday Boost Effect

When school's out, families travel. Our model applies a 1.5x multiplier to travel demand during school holidays, capturing the predictable surge that transforms quiet destinations into packed hotspots.

How the boost works

For each of the 127 source regions, we track school holiday schedules week by week. When a region is on school break, all travel patterns originating from that region receive a 1.5x multiplier. This means a destination popular with German families will see its score spike during Bavaria's summer holidays, while a destination popular with Australian families spikes during their December–January break.

1.0x

Normal week

1.5x

School holiday week

Example: Barcelona crowdedness over 16 weeks

0%25%50%75%100%School Holidays66%68%71%72%W1W2W3W4W5W6W7W8W9W10W11W12W13W14W15W16Normal weekHoliday week (1.5x boost)Base score (without boost)

Key insight

The 1.5x multiplier is applied per-region, not globally. So when German schools are on break but French schools aren't, only the German travel contribution gets boosted. This creates realistic, staggered demand waves across Europe rather than a single monolithic spike.

Regional staggering creates realistic waves

School holidays don't happen everywhere at once. Even within a single country, regions stagger their breaks. For example, German states have different summer holiday dates spread across 6 weeks. This means the holiday boost effect creates a rolling wave of demand rather than a sudden spike — just like in reality.

Bavaria (DE)Aug 1 – Sep 12Late summer
NRW (DE)Jul 5 – Aug 17Mid summer
England (UK)Jul 22 – Sep 2Late July
Île-de-France (FR)Jul 5 – Sep 1Early July
New South Wales (AU)Dec 20 – Jan 28December

See it in action

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