A Framework for Key Account Management and Revenue Management Integration

This is an Open Access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.Key Account Management (KAM) and Revenue Management (RevM) have been widely practiced in the service industries for more than three decades, but the effects of RevM on KAM remain largely unknown. This paper addresses this neglected area of study in the marketing field by presenting a framework for KAM and RevM integration that aligns the potentially conflicting management priorities of the two. The study uses an international hotel company as a research context to investigate, first, how a long-term relational approach to KAM may have been affected by RevM short-term revenue maximization goals, and, second, how KAM could be facilitated by RevM through an integrated approach to yield optimization from perishable products and from key accounts. The proposed framework is the first attempt of its kind to amalgamate KAM and RevM, involving critical analysis to assess comprehensively the revenue and the relationship value of a key accountPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Improving elderly social well-being through hospitality: the interface between service, social interaction, satisfaction and quality of life

This research aims to investigate how elderly customers’ social interactions with hospitality services influence their experience and satisfaction and how this affects the quality of life of the elderly. It will employ a mixed method approach in two phases. In the first phase, quantitative data will be collected through structured interviews with 300 elderly people living in the UK. In the second phase, focus group interviews will be conducted with a mixed selection of relevant policy makers, elderly customers and local hospitality business owners/managers in each group to explore the enablers and disablers of elderly social interactions with hospitality service providers and with other customers, and how their consumption experience and satisfaction could be best enriched. This study will make a distinct contribution to knowledge by exploring the social impact of hospitality through evaluating how a societal issue, quality of life of the elderly, can be enhanced through hospitality

Disentangling the effect of family involvement on innovativeness and risk taking: the role of decentralization

This study investigates the effect of family involvement on family firms' entrepreneurial behavior through decentralization. Borrowing from agency theory and using a sample of 145 entrepreneurs, this study contributes to entrepreneurship literature by providing a fine-grained explanation about how a decision-making mechanism such as decentralization influences the relationship between family involvement and innovativeness, and risk taking of family firms. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of considering heterogeneity of family firms and the focal role of decentralization in spurring up firm-level entrepreneurship

Influence of perceived city brand image on emotional attachment to the city

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Opportunity identification and evaluation in franchisee business start-ups

Purpose - This paper examines franchisees’ business start-ups from an entrepreneurial perspective, adopting a process representative of entrepreneurship to examine opportunity identification and evaluation by franchisees and to analyse factors that influence this process. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative study was employed and data collected using semi-structured interviews with a sample of service industry franchisees in Macau. Findings - The study identifies that social networks play a key role in opportunity identification and that franchisees’ goals influence the criteria used and information search activities undertaken while evaluating franchise opportunities. Research limitations/implications - The study makes two contributions to franchise literature. It identifies that social networks can serve as substitutes for lack of prior knowledge in franchise opportunity identification. It also identifies the interrelated nature of franchisees’ goals based on the activities and criteria used to evaluate franchise opportunities, and the importance of relational criteria when franchisees lack prior industry knowledge. It therefore also contributes to franchise/entrepreneurship literature by identifying the interrelated nature of the factors contributing to the dynamics of franchise chain growth. Practical implications - Franchisors should explore how to better use franchisees’ social networks and identify the longer-term goals of prospective franchisees to support market penetration and franchise chain growth. Franchisees are advised to use independent information sources to evaluate franchise opportunities using goal-informed objectives and demand and relational criteria. Originality/value - The study presents a more comprehensive understanding of franchisees’ decision-making process when joining franchise chains by identifying the activities undertaken and criteria used to identify and evaluate franchise opportunities

The influence of customer-to-customer interactions on elderly consumers’ satisfaction and social well-being

This study highlights the valuable role the hospitality industry can play in addressing a societal problem by studying how social interactions between elderly consumers and other customers influence the satisfaction and social well-being of the former. The data were collected from 268 elderly consumers in local coffee shops in the United Kingdom using a self-administrated questionnaire. The findings reveal that elderly customers’ interactions with other customers have a direct effect both on customer satisfaction and social well-being. They also show that social interactions with other customers have both direct and indirect effects on the social well-being of elderly customers. The study provides good evidence for how commercial hospitality settings can serve as a space for social exchange that helps to alleviate social isolation

Revenue management education (RevME), 30 April-2 May 2015, University of Delaware, USA

On 30 April–2 May, 2015, an inaugural Revenue Management Education Workshop on teaching Revenue Management (RM) was held at the University of Delaware. Made possible through generous support from Hyatt, the initiative was launched by Prof. Dr. Zvi Schwartz in order to facilitate a dialog among a selected group of hospitality RM educators and key industry players including: major international hotel chains, RM related technology and service providers and leading hospitality educators from worldwide universities. This article summarizes key themes emerged from the discussion and highlights the main challenges currently faced by RM educators

Revenue management: progress, challenges, and research prospects

This paper evaluates the main developments of revenue management (RM) over the past decade and discusses RM challenges and research prospects. It examines nine notable emerging themes: total hotel RM, big data analytics, distribution, rate integrity, RM and marketing strategies alignment, social media impacts on RM, RM system, applications of RM in non-traditional service sectors, and RM education and training. We argue that these developments have far-reaching implications for real-world RM practice and anticipate that the topic areas will continue to be popular for hospitality and tourism research in the foreseeable future