Channel And Business Model Strategies Selection For The Hotel Supply Based On The Heterogeneous Consumer Choice Behavior

Owing to the rapid development of e-commerce in recent years,more and more consumers book their own flights and hotels through the network channels.Therefore,more and more hotels keep the original traditional sales channels and sell their rooms to consumers through the online channel of the Online Travel Agency(OTA).Although the hotel can achieve rapid cross regional sales through the OTA,expand the scale of consumers and ensure the occupancy rate of the hotel rooms in the off-season;at the same time,the hotel also faces some risks when cooperating with OTA,for example,the OTA channel and the hotel direct channel compete with each other.In addition,there are two cooperation models for hotel and OTA: Wholesale model and Agent model,whether the Wholesale model or Agent model has its advantages and disadvantages for the hotel and OTA.Therefore,whether and when the hotel should cooperate with OTA to sell rooms,and in which model cooperation with the OTA have received great attention for the hotel.Currently,although many related research achievements have been gained in the manufacturing industry at present,none of them consider the factors of limited production or service capability,so their research results are not suitable for application in the hotel industry that is capable of constraining.In the meantime,although there have been a lot of related research in the hotel industry,it is mostly empirical analysis.Some practical problems and the lack of theoretical research still persist in the cooperation between the hotel and the OTA.To address these problems,from the perspective of supply chain management,this paper takes "hotel + OTA" type supply chain as the research object and constructs the decision-making model when the hotel cooperates with the OTA through different models(wholesale model or agency model)which considers the consumer preference and the hotel service ability is limited.Then this paper analyzes the optimal pricing decision of each member of the supply chain in different cooperation models and analyzes the optimal sales channel structure and cooperation model for the hotel under the principle of maximizing hotel revenue.The main works and innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)By using customer utility theory to describe consumer preferences for different channels,we establish a dual-channel hotel and OTA supply chain model and compare the optimal decision-making behaviors between hotels and OTA under different channel and cooperation modes with considering the constraints of hotel service capabilities.The results show that the hotel should abandon its cooperation with the OTA and only sell the rooms through the single-channel direct selling model,because the acceptable level of all the customers for the OTA channel is lower than that of the direct sales channel.If the hotel decides to cooperate with the OTA,then the OTA channel need to set a lower network price to attract consumers.However,it is inevitable to yield the competition between the OTA channel and the hotel direct sales channel.(2)In view of the preference of customers to channels and the increase in market size with the OTA channel,the paper analyzes the influence of different channels and cooperation models on the optimal pricing of the hotel and the OTA under considering the constraints of the hotel's capacity.The research shows that the hotel might become worse off after adding the OTA channel if the hotel's capacity,the increase in market size with the OTA channel,or consumer acceptence of the OTA channel are relatively small(below a certain critical value,the same below).Regarding the selection of business model,where the hotel has decided to cooperate with an OTA,the hotel prefers the Agency model if it has a large(above a certain critical value,the same below)capacity and where adding the OTA channel leads to a large increase in market size,and where the commission rate is low;and it prefers the Merchant model otherwise.(3)Considering the heterogeneities of customer's channel preference and acceptance for the OTA channel,this paper examines the impact of different channels and cooperation models on the optimal pricing of the hotel and the OTA under considering the constraints of the hotel's capacity.The results show that the hotel might become worse after adding the OTA channel if the hotel's capacity is relatively small;otherwise,the hotel will have a tendency to cooperate with OTA to sell as many rooms as possible through dual channels.For the choice of cooperative business model,when the customers accept the higher level of the network channel and the proportion is higher,the agent model is superior to the wholesale model for the hotel;otherwise,the wholesale model is most favorable to the hotel.(4)According to the difference of the audiences of OTA channel,we construct a "hotel + OTA" supply chain model consisting of a single hotel and two competing OTAs(a high-end network platform and a low-end network platform),and research cooperation model on the optimal for decision-making behavior of the hotel and OTAs.The results show that hotel will abandon to cooperate with all OTAs if the hotel's capacity is smaller than the average demand for hotel direct channel;otherwise,the hotel will have a tendency to cooperate with OTA.If the hotel's capacity is larger than the average demand for the hotel direct channel,and the high number is small,the hotel will only cooperate with the high-end network platform through the wholesale model.If the hotel's capacity is modest,and the customer's acceptance of lower-end network platform is lower,the hotel also will only cooperate with the high-end network platform;on the contrary,the hotel will choose to cooperate with the two OTAs.If the hotel's capacity is large,and the customer acceptance of low-end network platform is low,the hotel should cooperate with the two OTA through the agency model;if the customer acceptance of low-end network platform is moderate,the hotel should cooperate with high-end network platform through the agency model and cooperate with low-end network platform through the wholesale model.If customers have high acceptance level of low-end platform,the hotel should adopt wholesale mode to cooperate with two OTAs.The research results above can not only enrich the contents of revenue management theoretically in the hotel industry,but also provide scientific decision-making basis for the selection of hotel marketing strategies.