%0 Journal Article
%T The Influence of Pricing Strategies on Willingness to Pay for Accommodations: Anchoring, Framing, and Metric Compatibility
%A Choongbeom Choi
%A Sarah Tanford
%A Sung Jun Joe
%J Journal of Travel Research
%@ 1552-6763
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0047287518793037
%X Travel providers advertise low prices to attract customers, which can decrease willingness to pay through anchoring effects. Customers often approach purchases with a budget goal, which can influence price interpretation due to framing effects. Accommodation prices are typically displayed per night, whereas consumers may have a total trip budget in mind, leading to metric incompatibility. This research uses experimental methods to test the effects of price anchors, framing, and metric compatibility on willingness to pay for a Spring Break vacation. A high anchor increases willingness to pay compared to a low anchor, and consumers will pay more when exposed to an average price versus a range. Anchoring effects are reduced when the budget goal is incompatible with a high anchor but not a low anchor. The findings can be attributed to dual processing systems and asymmetry effects. The results yield practical guidelines for effective pricing strategies
%K pricing
%K anchoring
%K framing
%K heuristics
%K dual processing
%K willingness-to-pay
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0047287518793037