Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management

First Advisor

Scott Smith

Abstract

The lodging industry is experiencing profound disruption as short-term vacation rentals (STVRs) such as Airbnb increasingly compete with traditional hotels, reshaping competitive structures, consumer expectations, and pricing strategies. While prior research has examined the impact of STVRs on hotel performance metrics, significant gaps remain regarding how pricing resilience, competitive behaviors, and consumer perceptions evolve under these new conditions. In particular, little is known about how ADR-based valuation models withstand competitive pressure, how STVR hosts respond strategically to hotel pricing signals, and how consumers evaluate partitioned pricing structures across accommodation types. This dissertation addresses these gaps through three interconnected studies designed to investigate pricing dynamics at the asset, competitive, and consumer levels. The overarching research question guiding the dissertation is: How can lodging companies adopt strategic pricing behaviors to sustain competitive advantage in the face of disruptive market forces and evolving consumer expectations?

The first study applies a panel data analysis across 16 U.S. cities from 2014 to 2022 to examine how STVR penetration and hotel development moderate the relationship between ADR and hotel market sale prices. The second study employs a dynamic panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach to investigate whether STVR hosts exhibit strategic inertia in response to hotel ADR fluctuations. The third study utilizes a choice-based conjoint experiment to evaluate consumer sensitivity to partitioned pricing, such as cleaning fees and resort fees, across STVR and resort settings. Findings reveal that ADR remains a critical but increasingly conditional determinant of hotel valuation, STVR hosts adjust pricing sluggishly and inconsistently to competitive signals, and consumers prioritize total price attractiveness and reputational attributes over proportional fairness in price structures.

Collectively, these results contribute to extending Industrial Organization Theory, Disruptive Innovation Theory, Sticky Price Theory, and Prospect Theory within hospitality management. The dissertation offers practical implications for hotel revenue managers, STVR hosts, investors, and policymakers aiming to navigate evolving pricing challenges and proposes directions for future research to further explore strategic adaptation in the disrupted lodging sector.

Rights

© 2025, Badr Badraoui

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