Tourism retail runs on seasons. Get the timing right and the shelves are full when the visitors arrive. Get it wrong and you’re either sold out in the busiest fortnight of the year or sitting on boxes of stock when the town goes quiet.
The tricky bit is that Australia doesn’t have one tourist season. It has several, and they don’t line up. My stockists are spread across 132 towns and suburbs from the Kimberley to the Great Ocean Road, so I see this every year. Here’s how the calendar works and what it means for when you order.
Two Australias: the southern summer and the northern dry
Down south, summer is the big one. On the Great Ocean Road, the Mornington Peninsula, the Sapphire Coast and the New South Wales south coast, the peak runs through the summer school holidays, from just before Christmas to the end of January. Easter and the spring holidays add smaller peaks.
Up north, it’s the other way round. In Cairns, Port Douglas, the Whitsundays, the Northern Territory and the Kimberley, the busy months are the dry season, roughly May to October. The wet season, from about November to April, is hot, humid and much quieter, and some places in the far north get very hard to reach.
So a store in Merimbula and a store in Broome want their best stock on the shelf at almost opposite times of year. If you’re ordering, think about your season, not the calendar on the wall.
School holidays and long weekends
Every state runs its own school holiday dates, and families are the backbone of a lot of coastal trade. The summer holidays are the biggest, then Easter, the June–July winter break and the September–October spring break.
Long weekends matter too, especially within a few hours’ drive of a capital city. A town that’s quiet on a normal weekend can be packed on Easter or the King’s Birthday weekend.
Winter escapes and people on the road
When it gets cold in the south, a lot of Australians head north. Caravanners and retirees on long trips (the “grey nomads”) drive up through Queensland, across to the Territory and over to Western Australia for the winter.
That’s a big market. Australians took 17.3 million caravan and camping trips in 2025, and 87% of those nights were in regional areas. These travellers stop at visitor centres, roadhouses, caravan parks and small-town newsagencies, so stores along the main inland and coastal routes get a winter lift even if the local school holidays are quiet.
Events and seasonal attractions
Some peaks have nothing to do with school holidays:
- Whale season. From around winter into spring, humpbacks pass along the east coast. Hervey Bay and Eden both build a whole season around it.
- Snow season. In Victoria’s High Country and the alpine areas of New South Wales, winter is the peak, not summer.
- Local festivals and events. Shows, fishing competitions, music festivals and sporting events can fill a town for a weekend or a week.
If your town has a regular event, treat it like a mini-season and order for it.
When to order
The golden rule is simple: your stock needs to be on the shelf before the visitors arrive, not while they’re there.
Every brand and supplier has different lead times, and popular lines can sell out across the country before peak season starts. So:
- Work backwards from your busiest week. Ask what the lead time is for each line when you order, and leave room for delivery to regional areas.
- Order your core lines first. The things that sell every season, like magnets, keyrings, hats and anything with your town’s name on it, should never run out in the peak.
- Top up rather than overcommit. Order enough to cover the busy period, then reorder the lines that are moving instead of buying deep on everything up front.
- Plan the shoulder months. Before and after the peak, a smaller, tighter range keeps the shelves looking full without tying up cash.
Avoiding end-of-season overstock
The other half of good timing is not being left with too much when the season ends. A few things help:
- Keep an eye on what’s selling in the first couple of weeks of the season, and reorder those lines rather than the slow ones.
- Lines that aren’t tied to a season or a single event, like destination magnets or tea towels, carry over more easily than seasonal or event-specific stock.
- If something didn’t move, note it for next year. What doesn’t sell in one town might be a best-seller in another.
If you run a store
This is exactly the kind of planning I help stores with. I know the seasons in the regions I cover, and I can help you work out what to order and when, so you’re stocked for your peak without overcommitting. No store is too small or too big.
Book a visit, ask for range advice or see the products I can bring you.
If you make or import a product
Seasons matter just as much to brands. If your range suits tourism retail, the best time to get it in front of stores is before they plan their peak-season orders, not in the middle of it. My stockists are spread across both the southern and northern markets (you can see them all on the stockist map), so a good range can keep selling somewhere all year round.
See how representation works, or get in touch about your range.