Factors Influencing Guest’s Loyalty Behavior in Hotel Industry

Abstract

Across the world tourism plays a major role in development and growth of economy (Cardenas et al., 2015, Mazghouni & Goaied, 2015). Further it contributes heavily in creating employment opportunity and develops positive balance of payments (Khanna, Papadavid, Tyson & Velde, 2016). To maximize revenue in organization giving benefit to sales and return one can back upon loyal customers (Chen et al., 2016; Karjaluo et al., 2015). Majorly hotel services are divided into tangible and intangible elements which are very difficult to measure and evaluate. When compared to each other, it is easier to assess tangible element because of their visibility (Manh, 2013). Loyalty consists of behavioral (Zeithaml et al., 1996), attitudinal (Mellens et al., 1996) and composite (Hunter, 1998) dimensions. Literature shows that hotel industry has to thrive a lot to attain competitive advantage through diverse strategies (Godolia & Spaho, 2014, Manhas & Ramjit, 2011). Customer loyalty in hotel industry depends to a large extend on understanding customer preferences (Permarrupan et al., 2013).  An empirical study done by Bodet (2008), verified strong connection has been identified between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Research also shows that customer satisfaction apart being based on hotel ranking is also heavily affected by quality of hotel service. This further creates positive perception which leads to customer loyalty (Kofi, 2013). Positive perception generates customer satisfaction which spreads through word of mouth (Chinomona, Sandada, 2013, Gundersen, Heide, Olsson, 1996). Current study tries to find out different factors having influence on guest loyalty which further leads towards profitability.