Pricing strategies to maximize revenues in the lodging industry

Price-ending strategies may be utilized by hotels to signal value or quality. The current study presents that there is a directional relationship between room rates and price-ending strategies. It demonstrates that as average room rates decrease, the price-ending strategies change from whole dollar practice to dollar and cents practice. Results from the qualitative investigation were compared with the room rates from the Internet for 10 US cities. Based on this study, an innovative pricing strategy is presented with a potential gain of $251 million dollars by conservative estimations (nearly $555 million if estimated liberally) annually for the hotel industry in the USA. These potential sales are about 0.54% of revenues and 3.9% of industrywide pre-tax profits. Further studies in consumer acceptance of the recommended pricing strategy are suggested. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.