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The purpose of this paper is to provide a first evaluation of the effectiveness of the early bird discount on ski lift tickets by estimating the impact on hotel overnight stays of the Saas-Fee destination.

The difference-in-differences (DID) approach is used to compare winter sport destinations with and without the price reduction before and after the introduction of the price discount. The sample is composed of the 54 largest Swiss winter sport destinations for the seasons 2013/2014 and 2016/2017.

DID estimations show an increase in overnight stays of Swiss residents by 50 per cent as compared to the control group. Quantile regression estimations for the conditional upper part of the overnight stays distribution reveal a lower average treatment effect of 38 per cent. However, DID estimates for total overnight stays (domestic and foreign) are much smaller – about 17 per cent – indicating that the price reductions are not effective in attracting foreign visitors. Results are not sensitive when taking into account a large number of control variables (elevation, size and snow making capacity).

As tourists visiting winter sport destinations are interested in a mix of activities, lift ticket revenues or number of skier days should be used as an alternative outcome measure.

As positive effects on local tourism demand are mainly limited to Swiss tourists, such price strategies should be carefully considered. In the long term, the skiing market will stagnate or even shrink for several reasons (population ageing, climate change and changes in leisure preferences).

This paper provides a first quantitative evaluation of price discounts in tourism research. Knowledge about the discounts and consumers reactions to sales promotions are of great interest to marketing managers in today’s competitive ski market.

The “sharing economy” has blurred the lines between personal and commercial operations for many sectors of the economy. A convergence has occurred between hotel companies and home sharing platforms, as Airbnb is investing in brick-and-mortar hotels, and conversely hotel companies are investing in home sharing platforms as each of the sectors tends to mimic the other. Important aspects for the hosts of Airbnb are the quality of social interaction between guest and host and the level of authenticity of social exchanges provided by interactions with locals. There is both a quantitative and qualitative demonstration of professionalization within Airbnb's organization. The aim of this research is twofold: to measure to what extent guests are aware of the professional level of the host and to evaluate the importance of these professional aspects at the different moment of the vacation process (booking, stay, and post experience).

Workshop 2 was chaired by Pietro Beritelli who initially introduced the presenters of the three following contributions. They have been dealing with the adaptation of marketing tools, objectives and strategies due to new demand patterns of clients (paper 1), new technical facilities in marketing tools assessment (paper 2) and new marketing strategies in the ever growing special interest tourism of MICE. He stresses that despite these three diverse backgrounds they all represent relevant approaches to deal with volatile demand in evoking trends in tourism.

Three case studies about “air transport and sustainable tourism development” were presented in the second workshop of the AIEST‐conference.