Research On Cruise Itinerary Planning And Cabin Pricing For Segmented Markets

China has become the fourth largest source country of cruise tourists in the world and the first in Asia.However,from the development situation before 2019,the cruise market in China has shown a sluggish growth trend after years of rapid expansion,which is not commensurate with the huge consumption potential of cruise tourism brought by China’s huge demographic dividend.Numerous analyses have shown that the main reason restricting the sustained and stable development of China’s cruise market is the lack of characteristics and comparative advantages in the three core elements of itinerary,ship type,and cabin price of cruise products launched by cruise enterprises.This is because until the outbreak of the COVID-19 in 2020,the tourism products launched on the cruise tourism market in China are the most common mature products.Cruise companies believe that replicating mature cruise products to China is beneficial for shortening product development and launch cycles,enabling them to quickly capture the Chinese market and gain operating profits.This approach is also conducive to using existing methods for itinerary planning and cruise ship selection,as well as pricing cabin based on market demand.However,this approach ignores the diversity of demand in China’s cruise tourism market,as well as the complex relationship between market demand and itinerary,ship type,and cabin price.The result is that more and more cruise enterprises are offering similar products in the same segmented market,and the types of cruise products that Chinese cruise consumers can choose from are single.The phenomenon of "homogeneous bidding" in the cruise tourism market is becoming increasingly fierce.Ultimately,the profit space of cruise operators continues to shrink,and the enthusiasm for market development,product innovation,brand building,and expansion of reproduction is damaged,thereby limiting the expansion of China’s cruise market scale.To address the problem of sluggish growth in China’s cruise tourism market,we should diversify the supply of cruise tourism products,that is,design cruise tourism products for various segmented markets,innovate cruise tourism products and services for each segmented market,create a relatively advantageous cruise tourism market,and stimulate sustainable growth in the demand for cruise tourism among Chinese residents.In the above context,this doctoral thesis focuses on the three most popular cruise tourism markets,namely the river cruise tourism market,regional ocean cruise tourism market,and multimodal ocean cruise tourism market.Considering the connection mechanism between itinerary,ship type,cabin price,and market demand,cruise product design is carried out,including optimizing cruise tourism itinerary,selecting cruise ship,and pricing cruise cabin.This doctoral thesis mainly conducts the following research content:1)For the river cruise tourism market,based on the cross-quality elasticity,the indicator elements that affect the quality of river cruise tourism are determined.The goal is to maximize the profit added value of inland cruise operators,and the degree to which each indicator element should be improved is optimized to enhance the charm of river cruise tourism and expand the scale of China’s river cruise market.Therefore,the concept of crossquality elasticity is first proposed based on the commonalities between river cruise tourism and ocean cruise tourism,this doctoral thesis constructs a cross-quality elasticity model with price,quality,and reputation as independent variables and market share as dependent variables.Then,the Fuzzy-Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to decompose the quality of cruise products into three dimensions: ship elements,itinerary characteristics,onboard facilities and services.Based on relevant data from the cruise market from 2017 to 2019,consumer perception information on cruise product quality is obtained,and the parameters of the cross-quality elasticity model are estimated to calculate the cross-quality elasticity of China’s river cruise tourism to ocean cruise tourism.Secondly,based on the cross-quality elasticity,under the constraints of channel capacity and itinerary type,with the goal of maximizing the profit increase for river cruise operators,and with ports along the Yangtze River as alternative ports,a model for optimizing river cruise itinerary planning and cabin pricing is constructed.The "Chongqing-Wuhan","Wuhan-Shanghai",and "NanjingZhoushan" segments are selected for case study to determine the home ports,ports of call,order of call,voyage duration,vessel configuration,and number of tourists transferred from the ocean cruise market for river cruise tourism,and optimize cabin pricing.2)For the regional ocean cruise market,a method for jointly optimizing regional ocean cruise routes and cabin prices,taking into account consumer preferences,has been proposed to meet the needs of potential domestic ocean cruise consumers,and enrich the tourism products of China’s regional ocean cruise market.Therefore,this doctoral thesis analyzes the demand characteristics of potential ocean cruise consumers in China,and then constructs a joint optimization model for regional ocean cruise itineraries and cabin prices based on itinerary type constraints,considering the market game between regional ocean cruise tourism and non-cruise tourism,with the goal of maximizing the operating profit of regional ocean cruise tourism.A case study was conducted on potential ocean cruise consumers in Northeast China,using ports along the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea as alternative ports of call.The home ports,ports of call,order of call,voyage duration,and cabin pricing of domestic ocean cruise itineraries are determined,and the expected annual profit and cruise passenger volume of domestic ocean cruise itineraries are calculated.3)For the multimodal ocean cruise market,the dynamic demand mechanism of consumers under the interaction between cruise routes and cabin prices has been clarified,and a joint optimization method for "fly-cruise" routes and cabin prices has been proposed to attract overseas consumers to come to China for cruise tourism and expand the hinterland scale of China’s cruise tourism market.Therefore,this doctoral thesis analyzes the characteristics of cruise tourism demand of consumers in other countries close to China,and builds an optimization model for multimodal cruise tourism products,namely,the itinerary planning and dynamic pricing model for "fly-cruise" tourism,with the goal of maximizing the operating profit of "fly-cruise" tourism.Taking Malaysian consumers entering China for cruise tourism as an example,a hybrid solution algorithm combining SARSA algorithm and genetic algorithm is used to solve the model,and the home ports,ports of call,order of call,travel duration,dynamic pricing of cabin,expected passenger volume and revenue of the "flycruise" itinerary are determined.Furthermore,scenario analysis is used to test the role of "flycruise" tourism products in increasing the market scale of inbound cruise tourism for overseas passengers.