Great Walks Re-Releases Analysis

Research conducted by James Morgan, Great Walk Huts – Feb 2025

This article dives into the specific behaviours of people booking NZ’s Great Walk huts online. Specifically, when and how huts are released.

It sets out to answer three key questions:

• How many spots get re-released back into the system, and how far out?
• How long does it take for re-released huts to get snatched back up?
• Is there any seasonality as to when huts are re-released back into the pool?

This analysis looks at two years of data (2023-2024) and is specifically focused on the huts of the Great Walks.

How many spots get re-released and how far out?

Over the course of a year, there are a considerable number of huts re-released back into the system, likely due to the various reasons why someone’s holiday plans change. This means that if a person does not manage to nab a spot in the initial release, there is a high chance that they will still be able secure one throughout the year.

An interesting note is that the most publicly painful huts to book, such as those for the Milford and Routeburn tracks, have the most re-releases.

I can hypothesise that because some of more popular huts are notoriously hard to book, people adopt a book first, plan later approach when they are first released. This leads to cancelations later because they can no longer make the dates that they originally booked for.

So, if that many huts are being re-released, how far out from the booking date are they being re-released?

As it turns out, people are generally re-releasing their spots back into the system between one and two months out from the intended booking date. Those at the two-month mark particularly leave plenty of time before their original booking date for people to rebook the spot in the hut. Unsurprisingly, there are a minimal re-releases within two weeks of the booking date. This is directly in line with DOC’s cancellation policy, where they start ramping up the cancellation fees two weeks prior to booking date. Coincidently, this inversely correlates with cheaper campsite options, where over 80% of releases are within a week of the booking date.

Giving one to two months’ notice when cancelling a booking has ensured that the busy huts are at capacity, instead of having spots wasted. The capacity numbers are even higher during peak season (more to come in the seasonality section of this analysis).

Whilst there are naturally going to be outliers, this means that if people want to increase their chances of securing a spot from a re-release, they should start ramping up their search efforts two months out from their expected booking date. Or they could sign up for our tool, which will automatically notify them when a spot becomes available.

How long does it take for a hut to be taken once re-released?

Even though there are several spots being released back into the system after a cancellation, a common complaint is that even when released, the huts are rebooked so quickly that people are still missing out on spots. This section dives into that further and looks at the time between when someone releases a hut and it then being rebooked.

Unsurprisingly, the amount of time between release and rebooking varies significantly depending on the popularity of the hut. The most popular huts are often snapped up within hours of being released, whilst the least popular ones are not snapped up until a month after release.

The huts on the Milford Track, most well known for crashing the DOC website from sheer demand, when re-released are rebooked after just half a day on average. Following that are the popular huts along the Routeburn, Kepler, and Abel Tasman tracks which are re-booked within a couple of days.

This is particularly prominent for booking dates during the peak season, meaning that if a person has less flexibility over their travel dates, they will need to be checking the DOC website for availability at least twice a day. On the other hand, if a person is more flexible with their travel dates, there will be less competition in finding a spot.

Is there any seasonality as to when huts are re-released back into the pool?

To answer this, the first place to look is hut capacity across the year to better understand seasonality and demand. This is particularly important to consider for walks that are not open the whole 12 months of the year. Looking at the seasonally busy huts, such as those for the Milford and Routeburn tracks, the season window is shortened to only a few months. This means that the “off-season” technically doesn’t have availability either.

There is a consistent trend across all the huts during the fringe season. The months on either side of the closure period have double the availability than that of the peak season on average. Therefore, larger groups, who need more than one or two spots, might want to consider this when they are planning their travel. The obvious trade off here is that the fringe season comes with much greater weather risks which can result in a less enjoyable experience.

As we already identified, most of the releases happen within one to two months of the booking date. This means that we can expect to see the seasonality of when huts are re-released mirror the seasonality of when the huts are open to the public. In practice, there is a trend consistent across all major huts where there are more re-releases towards the end of the season come March/April.

However, there are other factors that will also influence this trend, the major one being when the huts are released by DOC. In recent years, there have been several problems with their booking system which have then in turn delay when the initial hut bookings are released. This will naturally influence these findings, as spots are not initially released until July/August result in no re-releases until after that date. There is the possibility that if huts are released by DOC earlier in the year, we will see some of these re-releases more spread out.

Our Predictions

1. People will still miss out. Year on year there has been an increasing number of people who are trying to book huts. Previously there has been upwards of 10-11k users on the DOC site trying to book when they are only launching the Milford track. There are only 7,360 spots on the Milford track (40 bunks x 184 days). Even if there are only two people per booking this means that just looking at the Milford track, there are only spots for 33% of the potential demand.

2. Assuming that the queuing system works correctly, it will really be first in first serve when it comes to booking huts. With the site not crashing, it means that those dedicated enough to get in first will actually get their spots. That being said, there will still be a significant amount of people logging in right on launch, so don’t be surprised if you end up being number 1000 in a que.

3. There will still be people booking without concrete plans. The more popular the hut, the more likely there will be spots released throughout the season.

Conclusion

There are clear trends as to how and when people are re-releasing their spots back in the system that can be used to better someone’s chances in securing a spot. The obvious one is to have more flexible travel plans and be open to doing the hikes during the fringe seasons. However, if that is not an option, hikers can prepare themselves by knowing that from two months out from their intended booking date, there is an increased chance that someone will release a spot. They can also prepare themselves by knowing how frequently they need to be checking for a spot. If they are planning on using a high demand hut, then it might be best to sign up to our tool that will automatically do the checking for them.