مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

One of the distinct features of the service industry is the perishability of its products/services (e.g., airline tickets and hotel rooms). Perishable products differ from tangible commodities on five aspects (Rücker, 2012), among which the most typical two are as follows. (i) Perishable products generally have high fixed costs and low variable costs, which considerably boosts the marginal profit per product (Ladany, 1996; Guo et al., 2013b). (ii) Unsold service products have a zero residual value and cannot be kept in inventory for future use (Stolarz, 1994). Consequently, when services are not fully consumed in a certain period, service providers face large revenue losses.

Service providers have adopted various marketing/operations strategies, such as dynamic pricing (Jallat and Ancarani, 2008; Palmer and McMahon-Beattie, 2008), market segmentation (Füller and Matzler, 2008; Guo et al., 2013b) and overbooking (Schütz and Kolisch, 2013; Toh, 1985), to fully utilize their finite capacity or to maximize their occupancy rate. Among these strategies, overbooking, in which reservations are offered in excess of product capacity, is widely applied to hedge against the capacity idleness that is caused by cancelations and no-shows (C&NS), which are commonplace in service industries (Amaruchkul and Sae-Lim, 2011; Chatwin, 1999; Klophaus and Polt, 2007; Mauri, € ۲۰۰۷).

Although overbooking helps service providers increase the utilization of their finite capacity, this strategy can also be a doubleedged sword because some customers are denied of service when the number of arrivals exceeds the capacity. Such denial is a terrible experience for customers (Zhang et al., 2010; Lindenmeier and Tscheulin, 2008; Hannigan, 1980). Service providers also incur disrepute and economic losses when they have no choice but to refuse customers. For instance, on June 24, 2011, a group of 13 passengers who had ordered tickets in advance through China Southern Airlines was informed that only three tickets were left upon their arrival at the airport because of overbooking (http:// www.chinanews.com/cj/2011/06-26/3137099.shtml). The passengers felt that the airline infringed their agreement, which prompted the company to arrange another flight for these passengers without any charge, return 50% of their ticket fare, and provide these passengers with accommodation and follow-up service as they waited for their next flight.