Effects of Various Charitable Contribution Ratios under Pay-What-You-Want on Art Museum Revenues

Abstract

Public exhibition facilities, such as museums and art galleries, are under financial pressure due to reduced state funding. Therefore, maximizing their revenues by applying an optimal admissions pricing strategy has become increasingly important. This study compared respondents’ intention to visit public art museums and their chosen prices under different admission pricing schemes. The schemes comprised pay-what-you-want (PWYW) and various charity contribution ratios. This study found that PWYW produced significantly larger values for average chosen prices than fixed pricing. In addition, PWYW combined with shared social responsibility produced larger mean chosen prices than standard PWYW. When charity was combined with PWYW, participants were sensitive to the charity per se but not to charity ratios. Furthermore, allowing visitors to freely choose the charity ratio produced more socially desirable results than the fixed charity ratios. © 2022, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales. All rights reserved.