A Study of Competitive Strategies in Recreational Service Capacity, Soft Recreational Activity Marketing, and Gate Fee

• Main Authors: Chin-Chen Chen, 陳欽楨
• Other Authors: Yao-Hsien Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27898567085658885426

博士 === 中華大學 === 科技管理學系(所) === 94 === This study investigates three subjects. First, in Chapter 2 we investigate how a firm determines its recreational service capacities and recreational service prices under considering the tourist’s recreation consumption style, congestion cost, and displeasure cost simultaneously. We also analyze how the firm’s above decisions affect the tourist’s consumer surplus and social welfare. We find that the displeasure cost of tourists has different impacts upon the different recreational service capacities and recreational service prices under the different congestion costs. Our analysis shows that the more environmentally endowment features or characteristics of the firm’s recreation site, the higher social welfare. This states that the environmental endowment of the firm’s recreation site affects social welfare. However, the higher the tourist’s valuation on the environmental amenity, the lower social welfare. In addition, we represent the analysis of comparative statics and numerical stimulation under the different market setups. Business implications of the above analysis are also discussed. Secondly, in Chapter 3 we analyze the effect of differentiated soft recreational activity marketing strategies used by firms on the prices of recreational service, profits, the tourist’s consumer surplus and social welfare. We find that the firms can use differentiated soft recreational activity marketing strategies to mitigate the price competition of recreational service, and these strategies also have different impacts upon the firm’s profit. In addition, the more the diversity of life styles of the tourists, the higher the firm’s profit. We demonstrate that the differentiated soft recreational activity strategies can increase social welfare. In particular, when the tourists have larger diverse valuations about the pleasure value created by the soft recreational service, that is, the larger the diversity of pleasure value, the result is beneficial to total social welfare. This implies that when the tourists have significantly different life styles, which can increase social welfare. Finally, in Chapter 4 we examine how firms utilize the gate-fee charging strategies and tourists’ lock-in cost differentiation that is due to tourists waiting for recreational service considered as a factor of market segmentation to determinate whether firms should require tourists to pay the gate fee and whether the gate fee can be used to deduct the recreational service price. Further, we analyze how to decide the recreational service prices after considering the gate-fee charge in order to achieve the objective of yield management and investigate the impacts of the above pricing decisions on the tourists’ consumer surplus and social welfare. Our results show that firms adopt the differentiating business types may not increase social welfare. An increase in the diversity of lock-in costs in waiting recreational service weakens price competition and makes firms more profits. In addition, the differentiating lock-in cost between firms can weaken price competition as well. In other words, firms can use the degree of heterogeneity in tourists’ lock-in cost, the differentiation of recreational service performed by firms, and the gate fee charge strategy to mitigate price competition and to enhance profits. However, these practices may worse consumer surplus and reduce social welfare.