Crowd, Savings & Price-Gap Reference
Three ready-reckoners for the numbers our calculators produce — how the crowd-avoidance score responds to crowd level alone, what an off-season discount is actually worth in dollars, and what a tourist mark-up means in real terms. Every row below is computed by calling the exact same functions as the Best Time to Visit & Crowd-Avoidance Planner, the Off-Season Savings Calculator, and the Local vs Tourist Price Calculator — not a separately maintained table that could drift out of sync with them.
Crowd score by crowd level (neutral 50/50 weighting)
Holding weather at a neutral 50 and the comfort weight at the planner’s 0.5 default, this shows exactly how much a month’s score falls as its crowd rating climbs from empty to packed.
| Crowd level | Visit score |
|---|---|
| 0 | 75 |
| 10 | 70 |
| 20 | 65 |
| 30 | 60 |
| 40 | 55 |
| 50 | 50 |
| 60 | 45 |
| 70 | 40 |
| 80 | 35 |
| 90 | 30 |
| 100 | 25 |
Every ten points of crowd costs exactly five points of score at this weighting, because half the score comes from crowd and half from the fixed neutral weather. Rate a real month’s weather above or below 50 in the actual planner and its score will move off this line accordingly.
Off-season savings by discount tier (5 nights, 2 travelers, $150/night peak)
A fixed illustrative stay — five nights, two travelers, no flights — run at every discount level from no discount at all to half off, so you can see how the percentage saved translates into actual dollars at this scale of trip.
| Discount | Off-season rate | Total saved | Saved per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | $150/night | $0 (0%) | $0.00 |
| 10% | $135/night | $75 (10%) | $37.50 |
| 20% | $120/night | $150 (20%) | $75.00 |
| 30% | $105/night | $225 (30%) | $112.50 |
| 40% | $90/night | $300 (40%) | $150.00 |
| 50% | $75/night | $375 (50%) | $187.50 |
Your own trip will scale from this table roughly in proportion to its size — double the nightly rate or the traveler count and the dollar savings at each discount tier roughly double too, while the percentage column stays exactly the same regardless of scale.
Tourist mark-up by tier ($10 local reference price)
A single item priced at a $10 local rate, marked up by every tier from a fair 10% premium to an extreme 300%, so the abstract percentage in a mark-up figure translates into a concrete dollar amount.
| Mark-up | Tourist price | Overpay |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | $11.00 | $1.00 |
| 25% | $12.50 | $2.50 |
| 50% | $15.00 | $5.00 |
| 100% | $20.00 | $10.00 |
| 200% | $30.00 | $20.00 |
| 300% | $40.00 | $30.00 |
Mark-up compounds multiplicatively, not additively — 100% is double the local price, 200% is triple, 300% is quadruple. Scale the local price in this table up or down to roughly match what you are actually pricing, and the overpay column scales with it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a crowd level of 0 score 75, not 100?
Because the score blends crowd with weather, and this reference table holds weather at a neutral 50 throughout. At the tool's default 50/50 weighting, even a perfectly empty month (crowd 0) only earns half its score from that emptiness — 50 points — plus half of the neutral 50 weather score, for 75 total. A month that is both empty and rated for excellent weather would score higher still; this table isolates the crowd axis on its own.
Why is the off-season savings percentage the same regardless of how much money is involved?
Because savingsPct is a ratio — the money saved divided by the peak total — so a 20% discount on a $150-a-night stay and a 20% discount on a $600-a-night stay both report 20% savings, even though the dollar amounts differ enormously. This table's discount tiers show the percentage and the dollar savings side by side for exactly that reason: the percentage tells you the rate, the dollar figure tells you what it is actually worth on your trip.
Why does a 100% mark-up mean the tourist price is double, not the price plus 100 dollars?
Mark-up here is calculated the way the Local vs Tourist Price Calculator defines it: (tourist price ÷ local price − 1) × 100. A 100% mark-up means the tourist price is local price × 2 — double, whatever the local price happens to be. A 300% mark-up means quadruple. The table below shows the actual multiplier in dollar terms for a $10 reference item, precisely so this compounding is visible rather than abstract.
Can I use these tables instead of running my own numbers?
No — they are a reference for reading a result, not a substitute for entering your own figures. Your actual crowd rating, your actual quotes, and your actual local price will not match these round, illustrative inputs exactly. Use the tables to sanity-check whether your own tool result sits in the range you would expect, and use the calculators themselves for a number specific to your trip.
These tables use fixed, illustrative inputs to show how each calculator’s arithmetic behaves — they are not statistics about any real destination, price, or trip. Run your own numbers through the calculators linked above for a result specific to your plans.
Use it with
- Best Time to Visit & Crowd-Avoidance Planner — rate your own candidate months instead of the neutral 50/50 grid above.
- Off-Season Savings Calculator — run your actual peak and off-season quotes rather than the $150 reference rate.
- Local vs Tourist Price Calculator — compare a whole basket of real purchases, not a single $10 reference item.
- How to Work Out Your Destination’s Real Shoulder Season — a full worked example of the crowd score in the guide above, walked through month by month.
- What Off-Season Travel Actually Saves You — and What It Costs — the savings arithmetic applied to a real trip, plus the honest trade-offs it does not capture.
- Reading the Local-vs-Tourist Price Gap — the mark-up arithmetic applied to a real four-item basket, with a worked weighted average.