Price Formation of Tourist Hotels of the City of São Luís/Maranhão

Abstract

The hotel is a business establishment for the purpose of providing accommodation and food services,

and for that, have physical structures that meet the specific and basic conditions to receive tourist, in exchange for payment. The pricing on these developments may have a focus on costs, market competition and the perception of value. Some factors can be considered in the formation of prices, such as demand, segmentation, weather, competition behavior and characteristics of the property among others. The aim of this paper is to analyze the pricing strategies in the lodging facilities in São Luís / Maranhão / Brazil. The study is justified by the importance of pricing for hotel management, from the reality of the hotel industry in São Luis. Was adopted procedures descriptive research, predominantly quantitative in a sample of 31 hotel companies of São Luís, with respondents managers of these establishments. Data were analyzed with support software R version 3.2.1. The research shows that the hotel chain in São Luis do Maranhão uses the tools and price management strategies recommended by the legislation and other support for price management. It is concluded that there is an effort of the management of hotels to professionalize the daily calculation methods, using techniques that give them more security in the decision and pricing, abandoning the informal or empirical methods, without abandoning the market research.