According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, unlike airlines, even elite hotels don’t
have sophisticated systems that can react quickly to changes in demand. Even if they
could, many hoteliers say people don’t respond that much to lower rates. “We’ve tested
this, cutting our rates by $50 [per night], and we didn’t see an appreciable response in
occupancy,” says Jim Schultenover, a vice president for Ritz-Carlton.
Source: Jesse Drucker, “In Times of Belt-Tightening, We Seek Reasonable Rates,” Wall
Street Journal, April 6, 2001. Based on the information above, the demand for hotel
rooms is
A) elastic.
B) unit-elastic.
C) inelastic.
D) perfectly elastic.
Compared to monopoly pricing, an optimal two-part tariff
A) reduces economic efficiency.
B) eliminates the deadweight loss.
C) equates marginal revenue and average revenue.
D) increases consumer surplus.