What does one price all year really cost you?
· 7 min read
If you hold one price all year, then on the Tricity coast you are putting it into a market where July has many times the demand of January. In Warsaw the same decision costs far less, because the gap between the strongest and the weakest month there is under twofold. That is the whole answer to whether this is worth your attention: it depends where your property stands — and the figure for your city is below.
Where the figure comes from
We take public tourism statistics for the region and ask one question: how much demand falls on each month of the year. An average month is 1.00. The spread in the table is the strongest month divided by the weakest — that is, how many times more guests look for a room at the peak than in the trough.
These are not our estimates or models. It is a reading from data anyone can download, calculated the same way as in our methodology. As of August 2026.
The spread of the year, city by city
| Market | Spread of the year | Peak | Trough |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olsztyn | very large | August | March |
| Gdańsk, Gdynia, Sopot, Ustka, Władysławowo | very large | July | January |
| Kołobrzeg, Mielno, Świnoujście, Szczecin | very large | July | January |
| Zielona Góra, Gorzów Wielkopolski | large | July | January |
| Poznań, Lublin | moderate | July / August | January |
| Białystok | moderate | August | March |
| Rzeszów | moderate | August | January |
| Opole | moderate | August | January |
| Toruń, Bydgoszcz | moderate | August | January |
| Wrocław, Karpacz, Szklarska Poręba | small | August | March |
| Kraków, Zakopane, Krynica-Zdrój | small | August | April |
| Łódź, Kielce | small | August | January |
| Katowice, Wisła, Szczyrk | small | August | March |
| Warszawa | small | August | January |
What this figure does NOT mean
It does not mean the price should swing fivefold. This is the spread of DEMAND, not of price. How much of that demand can be turned into a higher rate depends on how many competitors you have, how fast your nights sell, and whether the guest has somewhere else to go. We have not measured that conversion, which is why we give no multiplier here — a guessed number would look exactly as credible as a measured one, and it would cost you money.
Nor is it the curve of your city, but of your region. That is why Kraków and Zakopane share one figure in the table, even though everyone knows they have two different years. We checked whether it can be broken down further: Polish public statistics publish monthly data only at the level of the voivodeship — for counties and municipalities there is none at all. We would rather say so plainly than display a precision the source does not have.
And it says nothing about your property. Two apartments on the same street can have different years: one lives off weekends, the other off business travel. The regional curve is a starting point, not an answer.
What to do with it in practice
The simplest step needs no tool at all: find your peak and your trough in the table, then check whether your rate card distinguishes between them at all. If July and January cost the same at your property in a city with a very large spread of the year, then one of those two prices is set wrongly — either too high in the trough or too low at the peak. There is no third option.
The second step is to check whether your own year looks like the region’s year. If the region peaks in August and August is average for you, the problem is not in your seasonal rate card — it lies somewhere else, and it is worth finding before you start cutting prices.
You will find the spread for your own market, along with the full twelve-month curve, on each city page — for example Kołobrzeg, Zakopane or Poznań. Those pages also show the events that will move demand in your area in the coming weeks.