What makes you select a higher price option? Price-quality heuristics, cultures, and travel group compositions

Abstract

Scenarios were designed to investigate the influence of price–quality heuristics among participants from the United States, Korea, and China for different tourism and hospitality services, in different consuming situations and in different social group contexts. The results revealed that as the scenarios moved from consuming alone and with an acquaintance to with a close family member, participants in each culture had a greater propensity to select the higher price option. These tendencies were the most evident among the Korean sample, whereas the Chinese sample did not differentiate between an acquaintance and a family member, and the U.S. sample indicated mixed results.