Structural Properties in a Hub-to-Hub Network Revenue Management Problem

In this paper,the structural properties of revenue management in a hubto-hub airline network is studied.Using a reformulated network flow version of the problem,it is shown that the optimal value has supermodularity,submodularity,and Lconcavity in the network’s capacities dimensions.It is thus deduced that the certainty equivalent control thresholds used in the revenue management problem have monotone properties.These structural properties add important managerial insights into the network revenue management system.

HEDNA workshop on revenue management essentials for edistribution

The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA), in conjunction with their education management partner, HSA International, will host the new two-day "fundamentals" workshop on applying Revenue Management techniques within Electronic Distribution channels in advance of the opening of the HEDNA 2004 Conference in London.

Warwick International Hotels installs Optims Revenue Management System

Optims S.A. (Evry, France), the leading global provider of Revenue Management Systems (RMS) and IT enabling solutions dedicated to the hospitality, tourism and transport industries is pleased to announce the implementation of an Optims.Hotel Revenue Management System in the Royal Windsor Hotel, Brussels, a Warwick International Hotel and a member of Leading Hotels of the World.

Information provision and consumer search behavior for products with asymmetric uncertainty

When selling multiple products with asymmetric uncertainty,should the seller disclose product information so that customers do not have to incur any cost to resolve their uncertainties;if so,which product should the seller choose?To address these questions,we consider a monopolist selling two substitutable products to a group of consumers.Each consumer has asymmetric uncertainty regarding the two products.A total of four different information provision structures are considered based on whether the seller discloses information about each product with the aim of determining which strategy provides the seller with the greatest revenue.We derive several interesting results.First,the optimal information provision strategy depends on the magnitude of uncertainty in relation to the product with lower uncertainty.Specifically,if the uncertainty regarding the product with lower uncertainty is sufficiently small,it is optimal for the seller to provide information about the product with higher uncertainty,otherwise,the seller should provide information about both products.Second,when only one product's information should be revealed,it is optimal for the seller to choose the product with higher uncertainty and charge a higher price.Third,withholding information on both products is never optimal for the seller.Finally,our main model is extended by examining the Mean-Preserving Spread setting,and the robustness of our main results is confirmed.Furthermore,we examine the situation in which a monopolist sells a single product with two main attributes.We find that each of the four information provision strategies can be optimal under various scenarios.

Joint slot allocation and dynamic pricing of container sea-rail multimodal transportation

The container sea-rail multimodal transport system faces complex challenges with de- mand uncertainties for joint slot allocation and dynamic pricing. The challenge is formulated as a two-stage optimal model based on revenue management （RM） as actual slots sale of multi-node container sea-rail multimodal transport usually includes contract sale to large shippers and free sale to scattered shippers. First stage in the model utilizes an origin-destination control approach, formulated as a stochastic integer programming equation, to settle long-term slot allocation in the contract market and empty container allocation. Second stage in the model is formulated as a stochastic nonlinear programming equation to solve a multiproduct joint dynamic pricing and inventory control problem for price settling and slot allocation in each period of free market. Considering the random nature of demand, the methods of chance constrained programming and robust optimi- zation are utilized to transform stochastic models into deterministic models. A numerical experiment is presented to verify the availability of models and solving methods. Results of considering uncertain/certain demand are compared, which show that the two-stage optimal strategy integrating slot allocation with dynamic pricing considering random de- mand is revealed to increase the revenue for multimodal transport operators （MTO） while concurrently satisfying shippers＇ demand. Research resulting from this paper will contribute to the theory and practice of container sea-rail multimodal transport revenue management and provide a scientific decision-making tool for MTO.

Three-stage decision approach of network dynamic pricing and seat inventory control

The dynamic joint pricing and seat inventory control is more practical but complicated in both formulation and solving.This paper presents a three-stage decision approach(TSDA)to attack this problem.In the first stage,the relationship between dynamic prices and their pre-sale periods is built.The game process between passengers and the airline based on maximisation of both passenger utility and airline’s network revenue is applied.Passenger’s booking and cancellation processes are simulated according to respective distributions.In the second stage,the seat allocation model for different itineraries is built based on presented unified prices.It greatly decreases computation complexity since prices,itinerary legs and pre-sale time periods are excluded from combination.In the third stage,itinerary-based revenue management model is built with embedding the nested control strategy inside.Meanwhile,some practical factors such as cancellation and no-show are considered.The experimental computation results show TSDA is effective.