Business Commons^™

Mental Accounting And Unplanned Purchases In Online Booking: The Role Of Discount, Impulse Buying, And Thinking Style, Esther L. Kim

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

To minimize the high cost of commissions of online travel agencies (OTA), the majority of hospitality operators provide member only exclusive rates to encourage consumers to book on their websites directly. However, the revenue cannot be maximized due to the amount of discount. This dissertation suggests that hospitality operators may maximize their profit with the adoption of surprise discount to increase consumers’ unplanned purchases. Applying the mental accounting principle, this dissertation examines how consumers respond to a surprise discount when they make unplanned purchases, such as purchasing add-on items online. This dissertation utilized three experiments in an online hotel booking …