Application of revenue management practices to the theme park industry

Revenue management (RM) has been an essential strategy to maximize revenue for many capacity-limited service industries. Considering the common industry characteristics of traditional RM industries, the nature of the theme park industry suggests potential for enhancing revenue by exercising a variety of RM techniques. This study suggests practices for theme park operators for successful RM application. In addition, this study examines how customers perceive RM practice in the theme park industry compared to a traditional RM industry, hotel industry. The findings indicate that customers seem to perceive RM practice in the theme park industry as relatively fair practices as similarly perceived for the hotel industry. The findings are encouraging for the theme park industry because a relatively similar level of its customers' perceived fairness of the RM practice compared to the hotel industry suggests that adoption and implementation of the RM practice has great potential to become successful as it has been in traditional RM industries, such as hotels. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.