Discriminatory Pricing Strategy for Sustainable Tourism in Theme Parks considering Visitors’ Price Fairness and Service Value Perceptions

Abstract

With the increase in carbon emissions in the tourism industry, more tourism enterprises need to make sustained investments in clean energy and green technologies. From the perspective of theme park revenue and operational management, such investments mainly come from admission fees and in-park consumption. The objective of this study is to discuss the role of discriminatory pricing strategies in supporting sustainable tourism in theme parks. Based on transaction utility theory and equity theory, visitors’ price fairness perception and service value perception are incorporated into the visitor utility function. On this basis, a goal-programming-based discriminatory pricing model with three goals is proposed: achieving the established revenue target, achieving distributed justice between visitors with unequal status (advantaged visitors and disadvantaged visitors), and achieving distributed justice between visitors and theme parks. The research results show that, for one thing, the proposed discriminatory pricing model can enable theme parks to secure sufficient funds to invest in low-carbon activities (Goal 1) while for another, visitors’ satisfaction, brand loyalty, and willingness to revisit and sustainably consume in theme parks are improved by the realization of distributed justice through the discriminatory pricing strategy (Goals 2 and 3).