# How a Labor Day calendar shift can make a weekly travel comparison look weak

By MarketScale Newsroom · Published 2026-09-28 · Hospitality on MarketScale
Canonical: https://www.marketscale.com/industries/hospitality/how-a-labor-day-calendar-shift-can-make-a-weekly-travel-comparison-look-weak

> A calendar shift can move holiday travel into a different comparison week than the year before, making one week look weak and the next look strong.

## Key points

- Calendar shifts can alter the comparability of weekly travel metrics year over year.
- Misaligned holiday weeks can make a week look weak in year-over-year comparisons and the adjacent week look strong.
- Forecasting models should include festival dates and holiday placement as named line items.

## A holiday in a different week

A calendar shift can move holiday travel into a different comparison week than the year before, which can make one week look weak and the next look strong.

Block Field

The positive result has limits, though. A positive label shows the direction of the comparison, not how big the gain was.

## August records followed the event calendar

The Labor Day lesson carries over to forecasting. For commercial teams building next year's budgets, festival dates and holiday placement belong in the model as named line items, because a single event week can move a market's month.

## The dataset behind the weekly number

## Sources

- [CoStar: U.S. Hotel Industry Reports Positive Comparisons](https://lodgingmagazine.com/costar-u-s-hotel-industry-reports-positive-year-over-year-comparisons-19/) (LODGING Magazine)
- [CoStar: U.S. Hotel Industry Reports Positive Comparisons](https://lodgingmagazine.com/costar-u-s-hotel-industry-continues-to-report-positive-year-over-year-comparisons-5/) (LODGING Magazine)
- [Press Releases | STR Benchmark - CoStar](https://www.costar.com/products/str-benchmark/resources/press-releases)
- [Introducing STR's expanded solution for hotel benchmarking - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azm2Dt8m9hs)

Tags: CoStar, STR Benchmark, hotel performance, U.S. hotel industry, revenue management, RevPAR, ADR, hospitality, Labor Day, hotel benchmarking, asset management, commercial strategy

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