How Airlines, Hotels, and Cruises Price their Services with Dinaz Zaq

Impact Pricing

Dinaz Zaq is the Director at Revenue Pricing Consultants in London, the “home of revenue management and pricing expertise” that focuses on increasing profitability through diagnostic review. Dinaz spent 20 years in Revenue Management at British Airways, and also worked for resorts, hotels, and cruise lines.

In this episode, Dinaz explains how airlines, hotels, and cruises do pricing as she shares some of the strategies they use in line with the factors that affect their pricing decisions.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Understand how most airlines, hotels, and cruises do pricing;
• Discover the strategies they use and the factors that affect their pricing decisions; and
• Find out why each employee – even the cabin crews – are important on getting customers and providing great service

“The biggest thing that you need to get right is your demand before you make any pricing decision at all.”

– Dinaz Zaq

Topics Covered:

01:32 – How Dinaz got into pricing

03:02 – How do airlines do pricing? What factors affect their pricing decisions?

10:03 – The strategy behind “I will get the best price on a domestic flight if I book it six weeks before my flight”

11:47 – The difference between pricing hotels and pricing airplane seats

14:06 – Why hotels don’t hold their prices really high for last-minute travelers

15:53 – Hotels and discounts on their rates

16:40 – What is the strategy of cruises when it comes to pricing?

20:35 – Pricing table topics: “Every employee creates or destroys value”

22:35 – Dinaz’s pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

“Things depend, really, on the strategy that the airline follows and what's the flavor of the day as far as their management is concerned.” – Dinaz Zaq

“You might get some hotels that won't drop their price. Some might even take walk ins at the door for a cheaper price. They don't want to publish it on the internet. Airlines might. It's about, you know, when we talk strategy, when you try to hold the price then drop it later, you can sell it through a different distribution channel so that it doesn't hit the public and therefore not destroy your pricing strategy.” – Dinaz Zaq

“Their strategy is to fill it to 100%, and that's why you might find cruise prices dropping near at the time quite a bit. But what the customer misses out on is you may not get your best cabin if you wait too long, because the people that are regular cruisers, they have got all the balconies and then you'd be stuck somewhere on top of the discotheque or in a noisy area or whatever.” – Dinaz Zaq

People / Resources Mentioned:

• British Airways: https://www.britishairways.com/
• STR: https://str.com/
• Marriott: https://www.marriott.com/
• Hotwire: https://www.hotwire.com/
• Priceline: https://www.priceline.com/
• Booking.com: https://www.booking.com/
• Hotels.com: https://www.hotels.com/

Connect with Dinaz Zaq:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpcltd/
• Email: [e-mail]

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [e-mail]