# Make me an Offer: Forward and Reverse Auctioning Problems in the Tourism Industry

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.11400 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11400/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Nov 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A Parallel/Distributed Algorithmic Framework for Mining All Quantitative Association Rules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06764/) (2018)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Most tourist destinations are facing regular and consistent seasonality with significant economic and social impacts. This phenomenon is more pronounced in the post-covid era, where demand for travel has increased but unevenly among different geographic areas. To counter these problems that both customers and hoteliers are facing, we have developed two auctioning systems that allow hoteliers of lower popularity tier areas or during low season periods to auction their rooms in what we call a forward auction model, and also allows customers to initiate a bidding process whereby hoteliers in an area may make offers to the customer for their rooms, in what constitutes a reverse auction model initiated by the customer, similar to the bidding concept of priceline.com. We develop mathematical programming models that define explicitly both types of auctions, and show that in each type, there are significant benefits to be gained both on the side of the hotelier as well as on the side of the customer. We discuss algorithmic techniques for the approximate solution of these optimization problems, and present results using exact optimization solvers to solve them to guaranteed optimality. These techniques could be beneficial to both customer and hotelier reducing seasonality during middle and low season and providing the customer with attractive offers.