Towards relational pricing in hospitality: a customer lifetime value perspective

Purpose: This study aims to conceptualise relational pricing in hospitality and examine its positioning within personalised pricing approaches, distinguishing it from demand-driven models. Drawing on expert consensus, it identifies key Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) drivers and analyses the operational conditions required to implement CLV-informed pricing within Revenue Management–Customer Relationship Management (RM-CRM) integration, informed by Fair Personalised Pricing perspective as a conceptual lens.

Design/methodology/approach: Using a sequential mixed-method design, the study combines a cross-regional focus group (Europe and Asia) with senior revenue managers and a Delphi study involving 21 executives from international hotel chains to establish expert consensus on CLV measurement, relational pricing implementation and RM-CRM integration.

Findings: The findings show strong expert consensus on five core drivers of CLV in hotels: total expenditure per night, ancillary revenues, off-peak occupancy, distribution channel and length of stay. While individual-level pricing remains limited in practice, experts recognise the strategic relevance of CLV-informed individualised pricing (relational pricing), whereby differential treatment is legitimised through customers’ relational contribution. Delphi results indicate that restricted access to identifiable customer data, together with fragmented RM–CRM systems and limited analytical maturity, constrains the translation of customer value into pricing decisions. Overall, the main barrier lies in organisational and technological capabilities rather than in conceptual acceptance.

Originality/value: The study advances relational pricing as a distinct CLV-informed pricing logic that integrates individual-level valuation with RM–CRM coordination. By reframing personalised pricing from short-term willingness-to-pay optimisation toward long-term relational value, it shifts the debate from fairness concerns to the organisational and technological conditions required to operationalise customer-centric pricing in hospitality.