Revenue management of the Singapore spa industry.

Abstract

Despite the extensive research on revenue management undertaken in the airline and hospitality industries, literature on revenue management in spa industry remains relatively scarce. The imperative of this paper is thus to bridge this gap in context of the Singapore spa industry, and more importantly, to introduce revenue management practices into this nascent industry. By conducting focus group and expert interviews on top of existing literature, the applicability of some established revenue management practices in terms of customer acceptability and operation feasibility were examined. More specifically, price differentiation and the enforcement of cancellation policies are generally more acceptable and feasible; and thus can be introduced as fundamental methods to initiate revenue management in spa industries. In addition, it was found that managerial implications are crucial components for successful implementation of strategic revenue management practices. For example, the execution of employee compensation schemes and reinforcing employee training demonstrate the saliency of aligning these initiatives to revenue management objectives. Using these findings, a systematic approach can be undertaken collectively by the Singapore spa industry to enhance the revenue management practices and new or improved practices can be introduced.