Price fairness and its asymmetric effects on overall price, quality, and value judgments: the case of an upscale hotel

Abstract

Recent tourism and hospitality research has evidenced growing interests in such marketing issues as pricing, quality management, and value-laden destination development. While these and related behavioral theories have been introduced into the tourism and hospitality literature, many of them need rigorous re-evaluations and systematic inquiries in the tourism and hospitality context. Hence, building on economic utility theory, this study investigates a pricing issue with a focus on potential asymmetric effects of positive and negative price deviations—deviations from the internal reference price—on overall price, quality, and value perceptions of traveling lodging customers. Results indicate that the hypothesized asymmetric effects between positive (i.e., gain) and negative (i.e., loss) price deviations exist in buyers’ judgments of quality and value, although this is not the case in overall price perceptions. The article includes managerial implications of the findings and suggestions for future research in related contexts.