Examining the use of weather forecasts in differential pricing for ski resorts

Climate change is expected to become a considerable threat to life on earth and it already affects certain tourism destinations like mountain regions and costal destinations. For instance, Switzerland is regarded as one of the most popular ski destination worldwide, but today’s ski resorts in Switzerland is facing significant difficulties as weather condition has been particularly harsh for the ski industry in the last years. While ski resorts start to use various rate fences to implement differential pricing, there is relatively little research how their customers perceive these new pricing approaches. Therefore, this study tried to identify how various rate fences adopted in ski resorts, including the use of weather forecasts in differential pricing, are perceived by customers and consequently which of them could be successfully implemented to provide the industry with long-term benefits. In particular, this study focused on the effect of framing and gender on price perception. The study found that female are generally more sensitive to differential pricing and have the tendency to perceive it as less fair