Public methodology · Version 1.0 · 2 October 2026
The LSG Weak-Date Case Study Protocol defines how Low Season Growth structures, measures and reports commercial work around a specific weak hotel period. Its purpose is comparability and honest reporting: the same core fields should be captured before, during and after an intervention.
1. Define the stay period before the work starts
Record the exact stay dates, extraction date, eligible inventory and the reason the period is considered weak. Avoid using “low season” as the measurement unit when the actual commercial problem is a smaller group of dates.
2. Freeze the starting position
Capture current occupied room nights, available room nights, occupancy, room revenue where available, booking pace, channel mix and relevant cancellation information. The extraction date must be retained so later snapshots can be compared at known lead times.
3. State the baseline separately from the target
The baseline is the expected outcome without the new intervention, based on stated assumptions and available evidence. The target is the chosen commercial objective. Neither should be presented as a guaranteed result.
4. Record the diagnosed problem
Use the LSG Weak-Date Diagnostic to record the primary working hypothesis: demand, fit/positioning, distribution or conversion. More than one issue can coexist, but the case study should state which problem the first action is designed to test.
5. Log each commercial action
For each meaningful intervention, record the date, audience, offer, channel, owner, cost or effort where relevant, destination URL or contact route, and the decision that led to the action. This creates a chronology rather than a retrospective success story.
6. Separate signals from outcomes
Intermediate signals can include qualified replies, direct enquiries, proposal requests, booking attempts, reactivated past guests and conversations with target accounts. Final outcomes include confirmed bookings, completed room nights, realized room revenue and relevant contribution measures. Signals must not be reported as bookings.
7. Reconcile completed business
Where possible, reconcile campaign or sales records with the property’s reservation system using stable internal identifiers. Do not add platform-reported conversions together when they may refer to the same reservation.
8. Report cancellations and maturity
A booking can cancel and a future stay has not yet produced realized revenue. Public reporting should distinguish pending, confirmed, cancelled and completed outcomes and state the measurement date.
9. Use careful attribution language
A tracked booking can be associated with an activity without proving that the activity caused the booking. Where no credible counterfactual or comparison exists, LSG reports descriptive associations and avoids unsupported incremental-lift claims.
10. Show the denominator
Rates and shares should identify the denominator. Examples: direct completed room nights divided by all completed room nights for the same stay window; acquisition cost divided by completed qualifying stays; reply rate divided by delivered outreach attempts.
11. Document changes during the test
If the hotel changes price, inventory, minimum stay, cancellation conditions, channel availability or the offer during the observation period, record the date. These changes can materially affect interpretation.
12. Protect guest and property data
Public case studies should use only approved information. Guest identities, personal contact data, private CRM records and commercially sensitive information should remain in the appropriate private systems unless explicit permission and a valid reason exist.
13. Public case studies require property approval
Low Season Growth may use internal learning from a project while keeping the property anonymous. A named public case study, quotation or identifiable commercial result should be published only after the property has approved the public version.
Core comparable fields
- property identifier or anonymized case ID;
- stay-period start and end;
- measurement / extraction date;
- available room nights;
- occupied room nights at baseline;
- baseline assumption;
- selected target;
- primary weak-date diagnosis;
- audience or segment tested;
- offer or proposition tested;
- channels and actions used;
- qualified commercial signals;
- confirmed bookings and room nights;
- cancellations;
- completed room nights;
- realized room revenue when authorized and available;
- relevant incremental costs;
- measurement status: provisional or mature;
- limitations and confounding changes.
Why the protocol matters
Using the same structure across cases creates a longitudinal evidence base that becomes more useful as the number of completed projects increases. It also makes negative or inconclusive tests useful: a failed hypothesis can improve the next diagnosis when it is recorded consistently.
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