HOTEL PRICING AND DISCOUNT PATTERNS ACROSS LOCATIONS: EVIDENCE FROM THE INDIAN HOSPITALITY MARKET
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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/th.v1i2.2593Keywords:
Hotel pricing, Indian hospitality market, Hotel ratings, Location-based pricing, Secondary data analysisAbstract
In the context of India's diverse tourism landscape, hotel rates are a key determinant of competitiveness and profitability in the hospitality sector. The study employed secondary data analysis to study the pricing patterns of the hotels in the Indian hospitality market at various places. The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional research design with the Google Indian Hotel Data 2023 from Kaggle. The data set included 1,101 hotels in 51 Indian cities, with hotel prices, ratings, location and amenities. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and comparative analyses were used to analyse pricing differences and to investigate the relationship between hotel characteristics and room prices. Results showed that prices were highly geographically variable, with major metropolitan areas and popular tourist destinations having higher average room rates. A positive relationship was also found between hotel ratings and room price, which means that the higher the rating of a hotel the higher the room price. The results also show that hotel prices are affected by location-specific factors, service quality, and hotel characteristics but not by one of them alone. The results offer useful information to hotel managers, tourism practitioners and tourism policymakers for better understanding the role of evidence-based pricing and regional market in tourism revenue management. Though there are limitations in terms of the cross-sectional secondary data used, this study will help in understanding the pricing behaviour of hotels in Indian hospitality industry and form a base for future studies involving dynamic pricing, seasonal demand and customer booking behaviour.
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