Cruise revenue management: cross-discipline literature review and development of an integrated cruise revenue management framework
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 15 March 2023
Issue publication date: 30 August 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to adopt a holistic approach to understand cruise revenue management (RM) practices that cover ticket and onboard revenues, through a cross-disciplinary literature review and practitioner interviews. An integrated cruise RM framework was developed and served as a blueprint for future cruise studies and practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-stage approach was adopted, including a systematic literature review, two-waves of interviews with 26 cruise industry practitioners and the development of a holistic RM framework.
Findings
This study clarifies cruise RM functions across product planning, delivery stages and identifies ticket and onboard RM components. These are incorporated into the integrated framework, with weather and itinerary/ route attractiveness as additional considerations. Interviews revealed that there is no difference in the RM cycle before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, although strategies and tactics may vary in response to the market situation.
Research limitations/implications
Suggestions are made regarding product and service bundling and ways for ticket and onboard revenue teams to work together to optimize total revenue. Future research directions are also provided under the categories of RM applications and concepts, ticket core activities, onboard core activities and overall issues.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to conduct a cross-disciplinary systematic literature review of cruise RM without imposing publication dates or specific databases and the first to develop an integrated cruise “total” RM framework that includes ticket and onboard revenues.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all participants for taking time for interviews and contribution to their research. They also sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions from the reviewers, which helped them to improve the quality of the manuscript.
Funding details: There is no funding received for this research.
Disclosure statement: No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.
Citation
Chu, A.M.C. and Hsu, C. (2023), "Cruise revenue management: cross-discipline literature review and development of an integrated cruise revenue management framework", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 35 No. 10, pp. 3542-3569. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-07-2022-0838
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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