Plane Ticket Price Dispersion in the Online Selling System in Poland

Many authors have studied the influence exerted by tourism on the economy. Today, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are an important factor influencing competitiveness in the tourism sector and consumers’ decision-making concerning tourism purchases. Along with the expansion of the European Union, the revolution in passenger air transportation has spread over new member states in Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. The authors of this study analyzed ticket prices on Internet websites that aggregate offers from different carriers and on the websites managed by the carriers themselves, specifically studying offers for the most popular flight connections from F. Chopin airport in Warsaw to London, Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris. For each connection, the study examined flights operated by the Polish carrier, i.e., LOT Polish Airlines, and by a carrier originating from a destination country. The analysis of the particular coefficients illustrating the price dispersion for each flight operated by a foreign carrier in comparison to the offer from LOT Polish Airlines points to the conclusion that the tickets offered by the latter were marked by a much narrower price dispersion in contrast to the connections offered by foreign carriers on the same route.

processes in the air travel market was that in Europe, the process was carried out over more than a dozen years. Another difference lies in the scope of deregulation. In the US, it chiefly encompassed the market for domestic travel and only partially touched the activity of foreign carriers operating in the American market.
In Europe, the international market was more fully liberalized, and it can be argued that the deregulation process went even further in that it allowed for cabotage (air connections operated by a foreign carrier on the domestic market), which remains prohibited in the United States (Pijet-Migoń, 2012, p. 33).
In addition to the expansion of the European Union, the revolution in passenger air transportation has spread to new member states in Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. Its most easily observable manifestation was the emergence of low-cost carriers on the Polish market. After 2004, the number of passengers travelling by air increased considerably.
Moreover, the number of international routes departing from both Warsaw and regional ports also grew.
This dynamic development made it necessary to expand the airline infrastructure. As in Western Europe, air travel in Poland ceased to be reserved for the elite.

The Influence of ICT on the Tourism Sector
The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) constitutes the source of a technological shock that has shaken the foundations of the basic models of the production of information, knowledge, and culture, and has marked the beginning of a new period of socio-economic transformation (Benkler, 2008, p. 399). Furthermore, the expansion of modern technologies is gradually changing the manner of conducting business activities due to its influence over the relationships among companies, suppliers, and clients, as well as over production processes, cooperation with other companies, and financial activities (Castells, 2003, p. 77). The leading role among ICTs is occupied by the Internet, which offers unique possibilities in terms of information management. The Internet is a highly useful tool that facilitates the de-velopment and proper functioning of the economy. No distances, borders, socio-economic or cultural differences exist on the Internet. Both personal and technical interactions are equally available, and the role of the latter is constantly increasing. The development of the Internet has contributed to the emergence of a considerable number of new services comprising the management of information, for instance, services that allow shoppers to compare the prices and parameters of selected products in different online stores (Szopiński, 2008 Experienced travelers are more sophisticated in their searches and more often seek information on exotic destinations (Gaworecki, 2007, pp. 280-281). The Internet has exerted a considerable influence on the tourism sector and has contributed to bringing many new services to the market (Kabassi, 2010). According to Wang and Law (2007) (Szopiński, 2012, pp. 76-77). Consumers who employed the Internet for the purpose of seeking information on tourism services most frequently searched for price offers for such services (Szopiński, 2012, pp. 75-76).
Another phenomenon influencing the travel and tourism industry is the popularization of social media (Sotiriadis, van Zyl, 2013). Tourists use social networking websites to share experiences regarding tourism services (Fotis, Buhalis, & Rossides, 2011), and social media are thus becoming an increasingly important source of information for travelers (Xiang, Gretzel, 2010). Travelers place more trust in content produced by users than in content published on travel agencies' websites or mass media advertisements (Fotis et al., 2011). Consumers' opinions directly affect how markets operate. According to Freebairn, due to lower prices, the chief beneficiaries of the development of e-commerce are the end-users (Freebairn, 2001); however, this finding is not obvious in the context of Benkler's statement that the Internet has equipped both buyers and sellers with new tools that allow them to exert a mutual influence on each other (Benkler, 2008, p. 399). Consumers have been given the ability to share and seek information and opinions on goods and services through social networking websites, such as blogs, topical forums, websites that collect opinions on goods and services, and online auction sites, among others; in turn, sellers have obtained new abilities to monitor Internet users' behavior. Consequently, sellers are able to use dynamic prices (i.e., prices that vary according to the profile of the client interested in a product or service, with identification dependent on previous purchases, place of residence, or interest in a product or service measured by monitoring the time that a person devotes to viewing a page describing a product or service. Paradoxically, the massive amount of information on goods and services available in an information so-ciety causes difficulties for consumers, who are often unable to make conscious choices. Price comparison websites may contribute to solving this problem by providing offer comparisons and comprehensive recommendations; however, these websites have not been completely effective. Consumers do not necessarily trust them because the owners of these websites receive sales commissions as remuneration for rendering services. Furthermore, price comparison websites often provide no more than a fraction of the offers available on the market and thus do not present the entire range of offers, chiefly because price comparison websites only aggregate data on selected suppliers with whom they conclude agreements. Moreover, different search engines are based on distinct mechanisms for searching the offers available on the market. In order for comparison websites to be successful, they must compare non-price factors, such as product quality and post-purchase services (Gamper, 2012). Using comparison websites may be even more effective if services undergo comparison. Services may not be stored.
By using the Internet, companies that offer transport services, for example, may more effectively reduce this problem due to the use of dynamic prices. Brynjolfsson, Dick, and Smith (2010) claim that, contrary to the common assumption, search intensity is not correlated with greater price sensitivity. Instead, consumers who search multiple screens put relatively more weight on non-price factors, such as brand.

Price Policies of Carriers and Middlemen in the Plane Ticket Trade: Literature Review
One form of price discrimination is "temporal" price dispersion. This form of price discrimination consists of the seller offering distinct prices depending on the period in which the consumer buys a given commodity or service (Varian, 1980). Price dispersion is present in both on-and offline stores. The factor that has a substantial influence on price dispersion is the number of reviews posted by clients (Petrescu, 2011).
Nelson's results obtained using cross-sectional data indicate that the level of price dispersion is positively related to the price of the product and the number of sellers and is lower for goods that typically would be purchased several times a year (Nelson, Cohen, & Rasmussen, 2007). In the case of information overload or conflicting information on the electronic market, price dispersion intensifies (Grover, Lim, & Ayyagari, 2006).
Air carriers adopt various price strategies. The closer the departure date, the higher the ticket prices on a given route (Bilotkach, Gorodnichenko, & Talavera, 2010). Carriers may change plane ticket prices according to the number of days between departure and return (Alderighi, Cento, & Piga, 2011), one way that airlines can differentiate between clients in terms of their price elasticity.
One of the factors allowing for price differentiation is the seller's market power, which makes it possible to categorize clients according to their price elasticity of demand. Consequently, clients who wish to purchase a plane ticket shortly before take-off are perceived as being characterized by a lower price elasticity of demand. The seller, who is aware of the lack of a product substitutes resulting from a high monopolization of the market, offers the client making the late purchase a higher price than that offered to a client buying a ticket in advance (Gaggero & Piga, 2011). According to Lott and Roberts (1991), apart from the client's varied price elasticity of demand, the differences in prices for plane tickets may be explained by the cost of preserving a particular number of tickets in order to ensure their availability.
Research carried out by Brunger and Perelli (2009) has shown that the primary motive leading to the decision to use the Internet to find plane ticket offers was not price; rather, purchasing plane tickets online was perceived as an experience in itself. Internet users

Research Results
The analysis of the results presented in Table 1 points to the existence of a relatively high price dispersion for plane tickets, despite the fact that the highest possible comparability of offers was preserved. In particular, the biggest differences are observable between price offers submitted by the middlemen, which sometimes differ considerably from the prices set directly by the carriers. One of the factors explaining this phenomenon may be the fact that they employ different price lists for fees referred to as transaction-or service-related.  Having analyzed the prices for flights operated by LOT Polish Airlines and the selected foreign carriers (on the basis of direct offers from the airlines), it is easy to see the great differences between the coefficients obtained for the different carriers, although they are not stable tendencies. An analysis of the mean prices reveals that the offer from LOT Polish Airlines is: • cheaper in comparison to London (91% of the price offered by the British Airways) and Munich (76%); • the same in the case of Frankfurt (100%); and • more expensive for Paris (105%).
If, however, mean prices for particular flights are taken into account (i.e., both the offer of the airlines and the middlemen are included in the study), the re-the following features: • London -82% (it is the only significant difference in comparison to the prices offered directly by the carriers); • Frankfurt -100%; • Munich -77%; and • Paris -105%   (Nowacki, 2012, p. 54). The price policy-along with introducing new brands to the market and improving a product's usefulness -is also the marketing area where companies often adopt innovative solutions (Nowacki, 2010, p. 64-65). After advertising, price management is also considered companies' most important instrument for promotional action, regardless of companies' size or the sector in which they operate (Strużycki, 2011, p. 65).

Discussion and Limitations
Research concerning marketing strategies adopted in the market for passenger air transport in Europe is lacking. Studies of the American and Asian markets prevail, while the European market is different. For instance, productivity is dissimilar. An analysis of research results regarding the European and American market between 2001 and 2008 showed that European airlines had been more effective. The results of productivity growth between individual years also indicated that for most years, European airlines performed slightly better than other airlines (Assaf, Josiassen, 2012). Thus the following question arises: when is price dispersion lowest and when is the highest? In order to provide an answer to this question, future research might focus on a comparative analysis of weekdays, certain months, and significant holidays such as Christmas or Easter. Another question is: if the period between purchasing a ticket and the departure date is shortening, is the dispersion of prices for plane tickets growing narrower or wider?

Conclusions and Recommendations
Older consumers are currently a large and growing group in the European Union, which creates business opportunities for many entrepreneurs, including those offering tourism services via the Internet (Gonzalez, Paliwoda, 2006). Nevertheless, online tourism service providers continue to ignore them. As European integration continues (by way of the reduction of barriers to the free movement of persons and residents' growing affluence) and the Internet becomes more and more widespread (facilitating business or private relations), the frequency of the use of e-tourism services by persons active on the labor market, students, and Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2464064 Plane Ticket Price Dispersion in the Online Selling System in Poland pensioners may become even greater. Research carried out by Law, Leung, and Wong (2004) points to a conclusion that both web-based and traditional distribution channels for tourism services face a bright future.
According to Lee and Lin (2005), in order for online stores to enhance customers' purchase intentions, they should develop marketing strategies that will more correctly address the trustworthiness, reliability, and responsiveness of web-based services.
It would be interesting to conduct research on the dispersion of prices for plane tickets over a longer period of time. Furthermore, changes in the dispersion of prices for the most popular flights occurring in tandem with the shortening of the period between the moment of price registration and the departure date could undergo analysis according to the carrier that operates each flight. Price dispersion between carriers with respect to the most popular routes and particular months or weekdays could also be studied, assuming that the period between the moment of price registration and the departure date is inflexible.