PWYW Entrance fees: a visitor’s perspective on a prominent art museum in Thailand

ABSTRACT

The pay-what-you-want (PWYW) strategy is attracting increasing attention from various industries. The tourism industry, especially cultural services and museums, has adopted this payment mechanism to gain more profits and visitors and potentially positive effects for a provider. However, little is known of the factors that shape a visitor’s decision to pay for a museum visit in a PWYW situation and how such pricing mechanism influences their revisit intention and word of mouth (WOM). Hence, this empirical–exploratory study made the pioneering attempt to examine directly how visitors’ payment motivation factors affect PWYW, WOM, and intention to revisit in the hospitality context. This study applied structural equation modelling analysis on a sample of 458 Thai visitors at Wat Rong Khun Museum, Chiang Rai, Thailand, and demonstrated that visitors’ PWYW is partially influenced by payment motivation and that PWYW has a nonsignificant relation with fairness and altruism. Moreover, PWYW mediated the effect of payment motivation and WOM. Visitors who paid high prices for the visit expressed their positive perception of the place, including recommending the venue to others. Nevertheless, visitors’ actual payment did not affect their intention to return.

KEYWORDS:

• Pay-what-you-want
• word of mouth
• revisit intention
• museum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by the Kasetsart University. Contract No. KBS6501.0503/237. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Board of Mahidol University (COA.No. 2020/06-294).

Notes on contributors

Waranpong Boonsiritomachai

Waranpong Boonsiritomachai is an Assistant Professor at Kasetsart Business School, Kasetsart University. He holds a doctoral degree from Victoria University, Melbourne, and a master’s degree from the University of Sydney. He received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Kasetsart University. He worked for an IT company before entering academia. He is a consultant on many projects and for many organizations such as the State Railway of Thailand, the Liquor Distillery Organization, the Federation of Thai Industries, and Erasmus. His work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals in the fields of tourism, marketing, and information technology.

Ploy Sud-on

Ploy Sud-on is a Lecturer-in-Charge of global supply chain and logistics management at Mahidol University International College. She received her PhD in supply chain and logistics management from the School of Business Information Technology and Logistics, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne. She obtained her MSc degrees in international business and logistics management, both from the University of Sydney. She carries a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Bangkok University. Her academic research interest focuses on production and operations management, specifically the impact of agile practices on firms’ operational and financial performance.