An Evaluation of Guests’ Preferred Incentives to Shift Time-variable Demand in Restaurants

Abstract

Asked for their reactions to specific demand-shifting tactics based on revenue management, patrons of a restaurant in Ithaca, New York, indicated that they generally would be willing to shift their dining time to off-peak hours in exchange for discounts on menu items. Better than three-quarters of the 367 respondents agreed that they would accept an incentive for dining at an off-peak time. Specific results and conclusions are detailed below.A s airlines and hotels continue to build and refine successful revenue-management strategies, restaurants have recently realized the value that revenue-management planning can bring to the bottom line. Because the operational elements of restaurants differ from those of airlines and hotels, restaurants cannot simply apply the same revenuemanagement strategies as those used by airlines and hotels. To provide an enhanced understanding of how to use revenue management in restaurants, we first 68 Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly FEBRUARY 2004

Revenue management strategies under the lunar–solar calendar: Evidence of Chinese restaurant operations

“…The former one includes setting prices according to the expected demand level. Rate fences like coupons, quantity discounts, customer loyalty programme rates, time-of-day pricing, lunch/dinner pricing, weekday/weekend pricing, table location pricing, discounted fixed-choice menu and so on are commonly used (Kimes and Wirtz, 2003b;Susskind Table 1 The concept of revenue management (RM) Previous work on revenue management Kimes et al (1998) Kimes ( , 2004). The latter one involves comprehensive examinations looking into the whole dining process of customers and the operation of the business.…”

“…The present strategies to either smooth demand or adapt supply may not be adequately fit for the Chinese market. While restaurant revenue management strategies have obviously advanced in the past two decades, many practices are still derived from the western experience (Jones, 1988;Kimes et al, 1998Kimes et al, , 1999Shugan and Radas, 2000;Kimes and Thompson, 2004;Susskind et al, 2004;Shields, 2006). Its application has not been limited to restaurant industry only, but has also been broadly used in industries like airline, hotel, cruise line and golf course.…”

Application of revenue management practices to the theme park industry

“…The airline industry successfully invented, implemented and practiced RM after deregulation in 1978, and ever since, more service industries, such as hotels, rental car agencies, and restaurants, began adopting the practices. Airline, hotel, and rental car industries represent traditional RM applications because they share similar characteristics (e.g., perishable service or product, fixed capacity, distinct customer segmentation, and price differentiation) (Chiang et al, 2007) and abundant published research considers various RM issues for such industries (Weatherford and Bodily, 1992;Kimes and Wirtz, 2003;Kimes, 2004Kimes, , 2005Kimes and Thompson, 2004;Susskind et al, 2004;Berman, 2005).…”

An exploratory study examining information technology adoption and implementation in full-service restaurant firms

“…Such solutions help in menu engineering and analysis that integrate well with other systems, such as POS and accounting functions (Nation's Restaurant News, 2003b; Menulink.com) as well as Restaurant Revenue Management (RRM) to boost sales (Kimes and Thompson, 2004;Susskind et al, 2004).…”

“…For instance, although Firm 3 has demonstrated a liberal use of technology, neither the store manager nor the Director of IT suggested the use of the RRM software to monitor productivity. Given that prior research (Kimes and Berry, 2004;Susskind et al, 2004) has documented the positive impact of such technology on the restaurant firm, the restaurants included in this study could benefit from the use of this technology.…”