How to Fill Your Surf House in the Off-Season

Most surf houses have the same shape of year: a few packed months when the swell is best, and a long tail of quiet weeks where beds sit empty. The fixed costs (rent, staff, wifi, cleaning) do not care what the swell is doing. If you want a steadier year, the quiet weeks are where the opportunity is.

Who actually travels in the shoulder months

Holiday surfers book around school breaks and peak swell. Remote workers do not. If someone's job runs on a laptop, their calendar is flexible, and many actively prefer shoulder seasons: fewer people in the lineup, lower prices, and quieter streets. That makes remote workers who surf a natural fit for the weeks you struggle to fill.

Design the stay around the desk, not just the wave

Remote workers will pick a house they can work from. The details that decide it are simple:

• Reliable wifi, ideally with a backup connection, and a realistic description of it. Do not oversell.
• A real place to work: a proper desk and chair, or a dedicated workspace, not just a bed and a dining table.
• Quiet hours that make daytime calls possible.
• A surf routine that fits work: early sessions before the working day, or late-afternoon sessions after it.

Say these things plainly on your listing. Guests searching for a work-friendly surf stay are reading for exactly this.

Price for longer stays

A remote worker staying three weeks is worth more to you than three separate weekend guests: fewer changeovers, less cleaning, and more predictable income. Offer a long-stay discount so the longer booking is clearly the better deal. On Offshore Stays you can configure long-stay promotions and, for private rooms, a solo-traveller discount; both are applied to the price automatically. We explain how the maths works in how long-stay and solo discounts work.

Keep your calendar honest

Nothing costs you more trust than a double booking. If you list on more than one platform, sync your calendars so that dates blocked elsewhere are blocked everywhere. Offshore Stays supports iCal import for exactly this. Also make sure every night you want to sell actually has a price: a night with no price cannot be booked instantly and turns into a booking request instead. We cover how that works in booking requests vs. instant booking.

Choose how much control you want

If you would like to approve guests before confirming, set your property to booking requests. The guest's card is only held until you accept, so nothing is charged for a stay you decline. If you would rather fill dates without any back-and-forth, choose instant booking.

Be visible where remote workers look

Good photos, an honest description and a clear location page all help you show up when someone searches for a surf stay in your town. Guides that explain a destination also bring in guests who have not decided where to go yet; see our guides to Canggu, Ericeira and Taghazout for the kind of information remote workers look for.

If you run a surf house, surf camp or coliving space and want to reach these guests, list your property on Offshore Stays.