Driving Customer Engagement and Loyalty Via Customer Identification in Hospitality Industry

Adopting social identity and congruity theories, this study proposes that value congruity (VC) drives consumer brand identification (CBI), affective brand commitment (ABC) and customer engagement (CE) directly, which results deeper relationship with hospitality brands indirectly (portrayed via customer loyalty/CL). Moreover CBI influences ABC, CE and CL. Conceptual model has been tested empirically by employing structural-equation-modelling method. Self-administered survey has been adopted to collect data from three hundred forty customers in hospitality industry (i.e., 4/5 star hotel brands) in India. Results reveal that VC has been the most illustrative antecedent of CBI, ABC and CE. Results also show that CBI acts as a key driver of ABC, CE and CL. This study offers implications to service marketing practitioners to help in their planning- and implementation- of enduring strategies for building CBI, CE and CL