Interface between Hospitality-based Customer Brand Engagement, Self-brand Congruence, and Revisit Intention

Customer brand engagement (CBE) has been identified as an important determinant of brand co-creation (BCO) and brand loyalty. However, the cognitive and affective mechanism of CBE has hardly received a full assessment, particularly in the field of hospitality brand context. Thus, using service-dominant logic, this research develops a model that explores the relationships between self-brand congruence, social media involvement (SMI), BCO, CBE, and revisit intention towards hospitality brands during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, results suggest that SMI and self-brand congruence positively impact CBE. Secondly, results revealed that CBE’s significant positive effect on BCO and customer’s revisit intention. Third, findings showed the social media’s and self-brand congruence’s indirect impact on co-creation and revisit intent, as mediated via CBE. The model has been tested by adopting Partial least squares-structural equation modelling, and the empirical results can contribute to the advancement of SMI, CBE, co-creation, and revisit intention in the hospitality context. This study offers key implications for hotel brands to construct tactics in surviving during the pandemic.