Investigating the Impact of Customer Brand Identification on Hospitality Brand Loyalty: A Social Identity Perspective

To enlarge current understanding of hospitality brand management, this study investigates the relationship among social identity and social exchange marketing constructs. Therefore, this study develops and empirically tests an integrative model that reflects a comprehensive view of the relationships among social identity construct (customer brand identification) and other critical social exchange constructs (satisfaction, trust, commitment) and their influence on hotel brand loyalty. The data were collected due to self-administered survey of 345 respondents from the targeted sample of 400 customers in hospitality contexts (four and five star hotels) in India. Structured equation modeling was applied to test the hypothesized relationships. Results demonstrate that customer brand identification has positive influence on loyalty, commitment, satisfaction and trust. Commitment mediates the relationships between the three relational constructs (customer identification, trust and satisfaction) and brand loyalty. Further, customer identification and commitment are closely related, but they are different constructs in hospitality contexts.