The managerial flash sales dash: Is there advantage or disadvantage at the finish line?

What is it about?

This article presents a framework of hotels' experience of using flash sales (e.g., Groupon, LivingSocial) for hotel room sales. This framework includes potential advantages, disadvantages, and evaluation measures of the flash sales effectiveness. Such framework was built based on the interviews with hotel managers from different levels of the industry (independent hotels, branded hotels, hotel management companies, and brand corporate offices), and presents a well-rounded perspective on what hotels may expect when choosing flash sales websites as a room distribution channel.

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Why is it important?

This article presents one of the first theoretical works that holistically evaluate the hotel flash sales performance. Also, it may be useful for hotel managers who consider including or excluding flash sales from their distribution mix. This work has shown that key advantages and disadvantages of using hotel flash sales fall within the categories of inventory management, revenue management, brand marketing, customer relationships, and operational challenges.