Covid-19 Influence on Scarcity Strategy in Tourism Industry

Proceedings of The 5th World Conference on Social Sciences

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Covid-19 Influence on Scarcity Strategy in Tourism Industry

Burçe AKCAN, Arzu KAZAZ, Süleyman KARAÇOR, Aşina GÜLERARSLAN ÖZDENGÜL, Mustafa AYDIN

 

ABSTRACT: 

The scarcity strategy, which is based on emphasizing that the time or quantity is limited for the purpose of driving sales, has been discussed in the behavioral economics and marketing literature for many years as an effective way to increase sales. The scarcity discourse in the campaigns may indicate a real scarcity or artificially created scarcity. In digital media, scarcity strategy can be established with real-time data includes showing user activities in the site or app statistically to users for marketing purposes. It includes the presentation of data such as how many users made a purchase; how many users are currently viewing the product to encourage consumers to buy quickly. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the ways in which the scarcity strategy is interpreted by consumers in the Covid-19 global crisis. This is significant because consumers want to both have a holiday in five-star hotels that offer full service in mass as before Covid-19 and have this kind of holiday experience with minimum Covid-19 risk. While the phrase “only one room left” may lead consumers to buy in the pre-COVID-19 period, staying in a hotel that is widely preferred with COVID-19 means more contact, lower distance, and higher risk of virus transmission. In this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with consumers who made hotel booking for both the 2021 summer period and the 2022 summer period. By this way, it is tried to be understood how the scarcity strategy was interpreted.

keywords: consumption, Covid-19, scarcity strategy, real time statistics, tourism industry