<p>  </p> <p>This study aims to investigate three aspects of pricing strategy in the lodging industry. The three aspects are competition, consumer response, and entry-level employee pricing training. Competition forces hotels to adopt appropriate pricing strategies to differentiate their products from competitors. Consumer reaction is key to testing the feasibility of a pricing strategy and thus can instruct hoteliers on how to implement the pricing practice. Pricing training of entry-level employees ensures long-term pricing stability and efficiency. These three aspects together could provide a comprehensive framework that provide industry practitioners with pricing strategies and recommendations for competitors, consumers and employees. </p> <p>Firstly, we developed a game theoretic model to examine under what circumstance should hotels adopt add-on pricing. According to the results, add-on pricing could generally improve hotels’ revenue as compared to the traditional all-inclusive pricing. The optimal add-on pricing strategy for higher-valued hotels is to initiate the add-on pricing, regardless of whether competing hotels will follow or not. While, for lower-valued hotels, they should insist with the all-inclusive pricing even though competing hotels initiated the add-on pricing. </p> <p>Secondly, this study investigates consumer reaction toward add-on pricing in practice. Add-on pricing could trigger both positive and negative effects on consumers’ booking intention. Based on the Transaction-Acquisition Utility theory, this study empirically tested and showed that add-on pricing improves consumers’ booking intention as compared to all-inclusive pricing. Consumers’ perceived acquisition utility can be increased due to customization effect.  Consumers’ perceived enjoyment and information overload are the positive and negative driver toward perceived transaction utility. </p> <p>Finally, the third part of this study is to identify the factors that affect the training of pricing performance of entry-level employees in the lodging industry. Students enrolled in the Revenue Management and Profit Maximize course in spring 2022 at College of Hospitality, UNLV were recruited to participate this experiment. Based on the results, for entry-level employees, training outcome of data management and pricing basics, as well as employees’ pricing application skills are crucial to basic level pricing performance. When the pricing tasks become more advanced, besides data management and pricing basics, training outcome of inventory management also plays a role. In addition, in-person training could ensure higher training effectiveness for advanced pricing topics. </p> <p>This study provided a combined “distribution channel – consumer– employee” continuum of pricing in the hospitality industry. Theoretically, this study can shed light on examining hotel pricing strategy under channel competition, as well as understanding consumer behavior under Transaction-Acquisition Utility Theory. Empirically, this study offers industry practitioners a set of takeaways from strategy making, operation implementation, to employee training. <br>  </p>

Submitted by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-08T13:40:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - CAMILA MALHEIROS DE MACEDO SOARES PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 10741214 bytes, checksum: bdcab4097647719a16f870e8cd52ae33 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-08T13:41:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - CAMILA MALHEIROS DE MACEDO SOARES PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 10741214 bytes, checksum: bdcab4097647719a16f870e8cd52ae33 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Debora Cristina Bonfim Aquarone (deborabonfim@espm.br) on 2018-10-08T15:17:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - CAMILA MALHEIROS DE MACEDO SOARES PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 10741214 bytes, checksum: bdcab4097647719a16f870e8cd52ae33 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-08T15:18:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - CAMILA MALHEIROS DE MACEDO SOARES PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 10741214 bytes, checksum: bdcab4097647719a16f870e8cd52ae33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-13 / This dissertation aims to understand the reaction of consumers and compainies from the image crises. Social media monitoring was used as a technique to understand and characterize the consumer - in this study classified as an Internet user - and companies’ reaction, in social media in moments of image crisis, having as object of empirical study the Operation Carne Fraca, due to the importance and influence of livestock to the image of agribusiness and economy of Brazil and the threat of consumption lines that take out meat from the menu. From the literature, an analytical model based on two parts was elaborated: (a) in the brand image and crisis marketing literature, in which a construct was elaborated to analyze the companies' management strategies in the face of image crisis; (b) in the literature based on consumer reaction and social media, a construct was created to analyze the profiles of Internet users' reactions in social media. The research resulted in documentary analysis of cases of image crisis and characterization of the reaction of organizations and consumers in social media, including patterns of crisis management of companies and the reactions of Internet users in the face of image crisis. The study supports communication, marketing and management professionals to make assertive decisions in times of institutional, product or governmental crisis. / Nesta pesquisa propõe-se compreender a reação dos consumidores e organizações a partir das crises de imagem. Empregou-se como técnica de coleta o monitoramento das mídias sociais, para compreender e caracterizar a reação do consumidor – neste estudo classificado como internauta – e das organizações, nas mídias sociais em momentos de crise de imagem, tendo como objeto de estudo empírico a Operação Carne Fraca, devido à importância e influência da pecuária para a imagem do agronegócio e economia do Brasil e pela ameaça de linhas de consumo que auferem carne do cardápio. A partir da literatura, foi elaborado um modelo analítico fundamentado em duas partes: (a) na literatura de imagem de marca e marketing de crise, em que foi elaborado constructo para analisar as estratégias gerenciais das empresas diante de crise de imagem; (b) na literatura baseada na reação do consumidor e nas mídias sociais, com a qual criou-se constructo para análise dos perfis de reações dos internautas nas mídias sociais. A pesquisa trouxe como resultado análise documental de casos de crise de imagem e caracterização da reação das organizações e consumidores nas mídias sociais, compreendendo padrões de gerenciamento de crise de empresas e as reações dos internautas diante de crise de imagem. O estudo apoia profissionais da área de comunicação, marketing e gestão a tomarem decisões assertivas em momentos de crise de imagem institucional, de produto ou governamental.