The Impact of Photo Appeal on the Willingness to Pay for Hotel Stays – Survey and Experiment

We examined the causal effect of hotel photo appeal on consumers' willingness to pay. Across two studies, participants evaluated high- and low-appeal photo sets depicting the same four-star hotels, with identical descriptions and hotel characteristics. Study 1 elicited participants' own willingness to pay, while Study 2 incentivized participants to estimate others' willingness to pay. Linear mixed-effects models show that high-appeal photos increased willingness to pay by approximately £248 (p < 0.001). Results were consistent across elicitation methods and with participants' own photo-appeal ratings. The findings demonstrate that visual appeal can have substantial economic consequences even when hotel characteristics remain constant.