مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله تحقیقات بازاریابی – Journal of Business Research

Many firms seek to use revenue management techniques to maximize profitability in capacity-constrained situations (Guadix, Cortés, Onieva, & Muñuzuri, 2010). Yield management (YM) is a tool used to maximize profits with limited available capacity, such as airline seats or hotel rooms. YM manages the capacity to optimize the firm’s overall revenue (Mauri, 2006). YM is a tactic variable pricing based on understanding, anticipation, and desire to influence consumer behavior to maximize the income or profits from a fixed perishable resource. YM involves strategic control of stocks of places for sell and aims to sell to the right customer at the right time and at the right price. The originality of YM is the joint nature of control capacity and pricing discrimination, which are the two strategic levers of revenue management. However, if YM increases profitability, the consequences for the customers are not always positive. During the low season, customers benefit from YM because they can take advantage of rate reductions. However, at other times, customers may perceive YM practices as being unfair when they pay a high price for standard services. The consequences can be dramatic: The customer may not only break off all commercial transactions with the seller but also spread negative information about the seller (Campbell, 1999). Thus, firms need customers to see YM price increases as fair; hence the importance of knowing if firms can obtain a customer’s perception of fairness of actually unfavorable YM practices. More precisely: – Among the practices of YM which disadvantage customers, which ones do customers perceive as unfair?

Does this perception of unfairness (or fairness) vary with customer profiles (their experience, price consciousness, etc.) and the characteristics of YM practices? – Does this perception change according to the presentation of YM practices as gains (discount) or losses (surcharges)?

These questions are of great interest to management strategy. Proving that the level of perceived unfairness depends on customer profiles would enable decision makers to define YM strategies according to customer target groups. This research aims to understand how pricing strategies influence customer reaction. The following section recalls the different forms of YM, highlighting YM’s importance in the hospitality sector. Section three presents various analyses, like the theory of “dual entitlement” (Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986a), which refers to the notion of just price evolution. Section four shows an approach based on scenarios to assess customers’ perception of each of these practices. The study tests customers’ reactions to a positive and a negative presentation of YM practices.