Graduation weekend sells out your whole town. The school earns nothing from it.

Move-in and move-out weekends, family or parents weekend, admitted-student days, commencement and home fixtures. Each concentrates thousands of visiting families into a couple of nights, and in most college towns the beds run out well before the demand does.

The revenue line is straightforward and no different in kind from parking or catering: the institution caused the visit, and it helps visitors find somewhere to stay. What matters is that the recommendation is genuinely useful rather than the only option a family is allowed to take, which is why nothing here is mandatory or exclusive.

They generate the same spend on a smaller scale, and they are usually the ones fielding the where-should-families-stay question directly. The same offer works at department level without any central programme, which is often the easiest place to start.