Enhancing hotel brand performance through fostering brand relationship orientation in the minds of consumers
Introduction
The growing role of branding is well documented in the tourism and hospitality sector, particularly in the highly competitive hotel industry. According to a recent report, the most valuable hotel brands in 2016 were Hilton, with a brand value of US$8.4 billion, followed by Marriott, in second place with a brand value of over US$5 billion, and Hyatt in third place, at over US$4 billion (BrandFinance, 2017). Managing a hotel brand effectively presents numerous benefits for managers in terms of the ability to obtain a premium price for rooms, grow market share, increase consumer loyalty, and stimulate positive word-of-mouth patron referrals (Kayaman and Arasli, 2007, Sangster et al., 2001). Premised on these benefits and others, hotels have become increasingly interested in developing relationships between their brands and their customers. Indeed, over the past decade, the topic of consumer-brand relationships has attracted increasing interests in the tourism and hospitality literature (Chen and Phou, 2013, Hudson et al., 2015, Xie and Heung, 2012).
The choice of hotel accommodation is a significant decision for most travelers (hereafter referred to as consumers). For many, it is also a complex decision-making process (Li et al., 2013, Sohrabi et al., 2012). A strong brand helps to simplify consumers' decision-making process by reducing perceived risks and increasing expectations (Keller, 2008). Moreover, many consumers choose a particular hotel because of their strong relationship with the hotel brand (Mattila, 2007, Scanlan and McPhail, 2000). Indeed, developing a strong relationship with consumers “is increasingly emerging as a strategy for organizations that strive to retain loyal and satisfied consumers in today's highly competitive environment” (Meng & Elliott, 2008, p. 509). Despite the importance of consumer-brand relationships in improving a company's brand performance, there are notable research gaps in this area. As Papista and Dimitriadis (2012, p. 34) noted, “the literature on brand management and relationship development has so far emerged as two separate streams, despite the possibilities for complementarity between the two fields.” Drawing on relationship marketing and brand management literature, this study examines the role of consumer-perceived brand relationship orientation (hereafter referred to as PBRO) in affecting brand performance.
Relationship marketing theory postulates that consumers' perceptions of the strength and quality of their relationship with the brand shape their behavior in the relationship (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999, Verhoef, 2003). Indeed, consumers who believe that they have a strong relationship with a brand are less likely to patronize other brands (Morgan and Hunt, 1994, Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995). Grounded in relationship marketing theory, we posit that PBRO, defined as consumers' perceptions of a brand's genuine interest in developing relationships with them (Aurier and Séré de Lanauze, 2012), have positive implications for important hotel performance outcomes such as share of wallet, consideration set size, and revisit intention.
However, the assumption that relationship orientation is relevant to all consumers may not be completely true. For instance, the relationship orientation of a hotel brand such as Hilton or Sheraton may not necessarily lead directly to stronger revisit intention for all hotel consumers, as this intention may vary between consumers depending on their level of involvement (Hochgraefe, Faulk, & Vieregge, 2012). Indeed, consumer involvement has been found to influence the consumer decision-making process in the tourism sector (Chen and Tsai, 2008, Hochgraefe et al., 2012). We rely on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM - Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983) to guide our understanding of these relationships, such as the role of consumer involvement as a moderator of the relationship between PBRO and its outcomes.
The existing literature has recognized that consumers' emotions and cognitions have distinct effects on behavior (Millar & Tesser, 1986). Therefore, for a hotel brand to attain strong performance outcomes, it needs to connect with customers through emotional and cognitive routes (Nyffenegger, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Malaer, 2015). The emotional route relates to how consumers feel in relation to consuming or experiencing the brand (i.e., anticipated emotions) (Bagozzi, Dholakia, & Basuroy, 2003), whereas the cognitive route relates to how consumers think about themselves in relation to a brand (i.e., consumer-brand identification) (Wolter, Brach, Cronin, & Bonn, 2016). We believe that examining the specific emotional and cognitive mechanisms of how PBRO affects brand performance outcomes has important theoretical and practical implications. Moreover, while prior studies have examined involvement as a moderator of consumer-brand identification and its drivers (Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012, Stokburger-Sauer and Teichmann, 2013), no research has explored the role of involvement as a moderator within the PBRO–brand performance setting, especially in tourism and hospitality services. Identification of both the mechanisms and the boundary conditions of such a relationship helps theorists and practitioners to better understand the effectiveness of consumers’ cognitive and emotional routes to brand-related outcomes under varying degrees of consumer involvement.
Section snippets
Theoretical development and hypotheses
The central component of our theoretical framework (see Fig. 1) is consumers' perception of a brand's willingness and ability to develop and maintain relationships with them (i.e. PBRO) (Aurier and Séré de Lanauze, 2012). According to relationship marketing theory (Morgan & Hunt, 1994), consumers consider both the functional and relational benefits associated with a brand when making purchase decisions. Indeed, consumers “not only care about a brand's features and benefits, but also about a
Research setting
We recruited respondents from the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) panel. To participate in our study, respondents had to be at least 21 years old and reside in the United States. After eliminating 24 respondents who did not pass attention check items, we obtained a total of 376 usable responses for this study. Consistent with previous studies that examined consumer-brand relationships (Batra et al., 2012, Wolter and Cronin, 2016), the survey asked respondents to state a hotel brand name that
Measurement model
We conducted confirmatory factor analyses using Mplus 7.0 to assess the reliability and validity of our construct measures. Appendix A outlines the psychometric properties of all constructs. The KMO test statistic of 0.905 suggested sampling adequacy to perform a factor analysis (Kaiser, 1974).
Composite reliability, factor loadings, and average variance extracted (AVE) for all scale items support good reliability and convergent validities of all construct measures. The fit indices of the final
Discussions
This study examined the impact of PBRO on hotel brand performance, measured by consumers' share of wallet, revisit intentions, and consideration set size. Specifically, it was proposed that hotels' PBRO has direct and indirect effects on brand performance through the mediating role of consumer-brand identification (i.e., cognitive/central route of persuasion) and positive anticipated emotions (i.e., emotional/peripheral route of persuasion). A moderated mediation analysis was also employed to
Limitations and future research directions
While this study makes a significant contribution to the knowledge regarding the influence of PBRO on brand performance, it has several limitations that can be addressed in future research. First, to test the conceptual framework, we deduced causal relationships from cross-sectional survey data. Future research can examine the relationships presented in the present study using other methodologies, including experiments, to extend our understanding of the dynamic relationship between the
Statement of contribution
Riza Casidy is the lead author of this paper. Walter Wymer and Aron O'Cass made equal contributions to the paper.
Riza Casidy is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing at Deakin Business School, Deakin University, Australia. His major research interests are in the area of brand management and services marketing. He has published over 30 articles in leading marketing journals, including Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, among others.
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Riza Casidy is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing at Deakin Business School, Deakin University, Australia. His major research interests are in the area of brand management and services marketing. He has published over 30 articles in leading marketing journals, including Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, among others.
Walter Wymer is a professor of Marketing at the University of Lethbridge. His primary areas of research include nonprofit marketing, social marketing, brand strength/loyalty, and scale development. Secondary areas include the history of marketing thought, macromarketing, and corporate social responsibility.
Professor O'Cass has produced over 230 publications including 120 journal articles. He has been a chief investigator of grants valued at over $5,000,000. Aron currently serves on the editorial boards of 9 International journals. His work appears in journals such as Journal of Product Innovation Management, British Journal of Management, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing and many others. Aron's expertise converges on both the firm side and customer side with regard to theory and practice. In this sense, he has knowledge and expertise on firm management-employee-customer triadic research. He continues to engage in active consultancy with industry and has a number of research projects currently in progress.