Revenue management and customer centric marketing – how do they influence travellers' choices?

Simultaneous use of customer centric marketing and revenue management in service firms can create conflicts and perceived unfairness for customers. We introduce a conceptual framework to describe purchase decisions for services as a process involving utility judgements that are adjusted by a reference-dependent fairness component. Findings from focus group research with airline passengers and hotel guests provide empirical support for the role of fairness in customer decision making, and for the influence of a set of antecedents on reference point formation and resultant perceptions of fairness.