This paper examines hotels’ use of niche daily deal websites (flash sales) through the lens of external, destination characteristics, aiming to establish relationships between the two. Extant research indicates that both internal and external factors influence the decision-making processes of hotel businesses, yet, to date, this popular practice has been examined only from an internal business perspective. Using web scraping techniques, spatial and census data combined with quantitative analysis, the paper analyses 2741 niche daily deal offerings of 4-and 5-star Italian hotels against destination characteristics. The paper evidences the destination market structure impact on the conduct of hotels related to daily deal use. It shows that destination seasonality, economic tourist reliance, local competition and tourism demand are correlated with the volume and/or depth of discount of hotel offers featured via daily deal websites. This study contributes to the pricing research by empirically evidencing and comprehensively mapping a relationship between localised destination characteristics and hotel discounting behaviour.

中文翻译：

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每日交易分布和当地目的地特征：对意大利高档酒店在线销售实践的数据驱动分析

本文通过外部目的地特征的视角研究了酒店对利基每日交易网站（限时抢购）的使用，旨在建立两者之间的关系。现存的研究表明，内部和外部因素都会影响酒店企业的决策过程，但迄今为止，这种流行的做法仅从内部业务角度进行了研究。该论文使用网络抓取技术、空间和人口普查数据以及定量分析，根据目的地特征分析了意大利 4 星级和 5 星级酒店的 2741 个利基每日交易产品。该论文证明了目的地市场结构对酒店日常交易使用行为的影响。它表明，目的地季节性、经济旅游依赖度、当地竞争和旅游需求与每日优惠网站提供的折扣数量和/或深度相关。本研究通过实证证明和全面绘制本地化目的地特征与酒店折扣行为之间的关系，为定价研究做出了贡献。