Overview of price discrepancies among hotels positioned in the same category

Zoran Temelkov

doi:10.5937/menhottur2002011T

Authors

Zoran Temelkov Goce Delčev University of Štip, Faculty of Tourism and Business Logistics, Štip, North Macedonia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1712-3739

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5937/menhottur2002011T

Keywords:

hotel room rate, room price, price strategy, hotel category, Booking.com

Abstract

Hotels have a variety of pricing methods at their disposal when defining adequate pricing strategy. Nevertheless, irrespective of the complexity and the manner in which room prices are calculated all methods are based on certain factors which have an influence on the final room rate. Accordingly, the perception regarding the impact of each factor along with the expected value provided to the customer will cause for hotels to charge different prices. The prices offered on Booking.com for hotels falling in different categories allow examination of the potential price differences among five, four, three and two stars hotels in multiple cities in Europe. The findings suggest that even though two hotels may belong to the same category, their prices may differ few hundreds of per cents which implies that the level of value offered to guests can vary significantly.

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