Professional Documents
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informs
doi 10.1287/ited.1090.0031ca
2009 INFORMS
I N F O R M S
Transactions on Education
Case Article
Operations and Information Management Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 {cohen@wharton.upenn.edu, gans@wharton.upenn.edu}
arrahs Entertainment operates a highly diversied network of gambling facilities in the United States and
the United Kingdom. This case introduces students to Harrahs use of price controls for hotel revenue
management: how it works, how it integrates with Harrahs Total Rewards loyalty card, and how it might be
changed. Within the context of a course on revenue management or service operations, the case can be used
effectively to discuss principles of revenue management and to demonstrate the use of a number of quantitative
analysis techniques to design and optimize revenue management systems.
Key words: revenue management; gaming industry; clearing prices; bid prices; hotels
History: Received: May 2008; accepted: January 2009. This paper was with the authors 5 months for 1 revision.
Case Background
Overbooking
Integrating bid prices, booking limits, and overbooking in a network
Within this RM segment, we have used the case
in two ways: as an initial session that immediately
immerses students into the details of RM (prior to
learning any of the standard RM models listed above)
and as a nal capstone class in which students apply
many of the models to the case. We believe that the
case is rich enough to be used twice at both the start
and the end of such an RM segment.
Used in an introductory session, the Harrahs case
provides students with a background on hotel RM
in the gaming industry, an area that is lesser-known
than more traditional hotel and airline applications.
In this context, we have used the case qualitatively,
without requiring a detailed analysis or case write-up.
Even without explicit quantitative analysis of Harrahs
pricing scheme, the case provides enough detail to
stimulate classroom discussion concerning the aims
of Harrahs pricing scheme and whether or not it
best serves the companys economic goals for its RM
system.
Used as a quantitative case later within an RM
segment, Harrahs allows the class to work through
some or all of the following: (1) understand Harrahs
Agrawal, Cohen, and Gans: Case Article: Revenue Management at Harrahs Entertainment, Inc.
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