Résumé
“Last-minute” deals in travel and tourism services are very appealing not only to
travellers but also for service providers. Timing and price are central to an optimization
strategy for last-minute deals for both sides. This study analyses last-minute
timing behaviour for self-catering customers and proposes to the supplier an estimation
of the critical last-minute momentum (LMM) that is, the optimal moment
for launching these kinds of deals. The data emanates from the largest self-catering
accommodation booking platform in the Romand Valais in Switzerland, containing
more than 154,000 transactions. The study focuses on the domestic market, that is
the largest market of the platform consisting of more than 90,000 transactions. The
results show that LMM estimation accuracy increases when the party composition
is considered even though improvements are not homogeneous across seasons. For
practitioners, the results clarify the timing optimization of last-minute campaigns.
For scholars, the results demonstrate that last-minute behavior challenges traditional
paradigms of the planning vacation process (PVP). This is an extended version of a
conference paper entitled “When last-minute is really last minute” previously published
in the proceedings of the Information and Communication Technologies in
Tourism 2018: Proceedings of the International Conference (ENTER 2018) held in
Jönköping, Sweden, January 24–26.