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Explores the main issues within hotel chain branding, focusing particularly on the problems of branding heterogeneous hotel portfolios. Relates the theory of branding to hotel chains, and outlines the difficulties of bringing consistency to hotel brands. Reviews the development of branding within the US and UK and identifies some of the features associated with hard and soft brands. Examines Forte Hotels′ 1991 rebranding exercise, the implications of which are considered in a wider context.

This paper aims to examine the relationships between motives, skepticism and brands evaluations in the LGBT-friendly branding hotels context.

An online survey is created and 278 LGBT participants are recruited through a consumer panels firm. The research model is tested through structural equation modeling.

Values-, stakeholder- and strategic-driven motives are negatively related to skepticism, while egoistic-driven motive is positively related to skepticism. Also, sexual orientation openness moderates the relationship between stakeholder-driven motives and skepticism. Finally, skepticism is negatively related to brands evaluations.

The research findings are limited to the LGBT-friendly hotels. However, this research contributes to the CSR and LGBT consumer research by examining the relationships between the four motives and skepticism considering LGBT customers’ sexual orientation openness level.

Hotels should devote greater efforts to communicating that their LGBT-friendly branding efforts are genuine by acknowledging both the social benefits and the business interests.

As more and more hotels promote themselves as LGBT-friendly brands, a key challenge is reducing skepticism by appropriately conveying their motives. This research sheds light on this critical issue.

Although existent research on LGBT-friendliness has established its importance; there is a lack of understanding as to how customers perceive LGBT-friendly branding hotels. This research examines the four motives of hotels presenting themselves as being LGBT-friendly and their relationships to skepticism.

This study aims to pay attention to the brand portfolio extension of international hotel chains, and explores the double-edged sword effect of consumer confusion in hotel brands on the purchase decision process.

Four representative international hotel chains (Marriott, Accor, Wyndham and Hyatt) were selected, and this study adopted consumer confusion from both formative and reflective perspectives. First, the authors dealt with stimuli-causing consumer confusion and evaluated similarity, overload and ambiguity confusion about the brand portfolio of these major hotel companies. Second, the authors examined the influence of consumer confusion on the decision-making process, which is rooted in the awareness–interest–desire–action model.

Among the source of consumer confusion, similarity confusion was critical for Marriott, Accor and Hyatt, whereas ambiguity confusion was severe for Wyndham. Awareness was positively affected by overload confusion, but negatively affected by ambiguity confusion. Furthermore, the link between interest and desire was moderated by the consequences of consumer confusion.

Based on both positive and negative roles of consumer confusion, this study provides implications for enhancing brand strategy and communications of international chain hotels.

This present study differs from previous studies, in that it deals with consumer confusion associated with brand portfolio expansion, which produces a double-edged sword effect in the hotel context.

This study aims to investigate the content of hotel brands’ mission statements (MSs) and their relationship with selected attributes of hotel brands.

Content analysis of hotel brands’ MSs was used to detect the MSs’ key words, which were further processed by methods of social network analysis, complemented by clustering techniques and correspondence analysis on the generalized aggregated lexical tables, a special type of correspondence analysis.

Hotel brands operating in luxurious markets more often emphasize experiences than those in midscale markets. Furthermore, hotel brands with longer traditions and those with a large number of controlled rooms communicate words in their MSs that represent a rather traditional approach to hospitality. Younger hotel brands with fewer controlled rooms chose words that indicate a more commercially oriented approach. Finally, cluster analysis revealed four dimensions of hotel brands’ MSs, instead of the nine most typically used in mission statement component models.

Understanding the frequencies and networks of keywords, and their relationship with hotel brand attributes, will help create more focussed MSs. This will strengthen hotel brands, raise their revenues and subsequently increase company performance.

The analysis provides valuable insight into MSs in the specific tourism context of hotel brands. The authors have achieved this with the use of a wide range of advanced network analytic methods. These insights can guide hotel brands to better position themselves in the competitive tourism accommodation market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the hotel growth model including hotel brand, culture and life cycle phases of the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the fastest growing tourism destination in the United States.

Culture reflecting consuming behaviour of low-context innovators and high-context imitators is measured by the price elasticity of demand (PED). Hotel brand reflecting guests’ hotel class is measured by the income elasticity of demand. Autoregressive distributed lag has been conducted on the Smith Travel Research data in 33 years (1989–2022) to determine the relationship among hotel brand, culture and life cycles.

Skilled labour is the key to make hotels grow. Therefore, increase room rates when hotels possess skilled professionals and decrease room rates when hotels have no skilled professionals. During the rejuvenation in Myrtle Beach (1999–2003), hoteliers increased room rates for innovators due to skilled professionals to increase revenue. Otherwise, a decrease in room rates due to lack of skilled professionals would lead to increase revenue.

(1) Although Myrtle Beach is one of the fastest growing tourism destinations in the US, it has a relatively small geographic area relative to the country. (2) Data cover over one tourist life cycle, so the time span is relatively short. Hoteliers can forecast the number of guests in different culture by changing room rates.

To optimize revenue, hoteliers can select skilled labour in professional design hotel brands which could make an increase in demand for leisure transient guests no matter what room rates increase after COVID-19 pandemic.

The study has considered the applied ethical processes regarding revenue management that would maximize both revenue and customer satisfaction when it set up an increase in room rates to compensate for professional hotel room design or it decreases room rates for low-income imitators in exploration and development.

This research highlights that (1) skilled design in the luxury hotel brand is the key for the hotel growth and (2) there is a steady state of the growth model in the destination life cycle.

This study aims to understand the consequences of the decision by some hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic to contract their accommodation to be used as managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities. Specifically, this study aims to understand the impact of this decision in terms of corporate brand image, brand loyalty, negative word of mouth (NWOM) and purchase intention.

Data were collected through a quasi-experimental research design and was analysed through a t-test.

This study hypothesises that the use of a hotel brand as a COVID-19 MIQ facility will be detrimental to its corporate brand image because of the expectation disconfirmation theory and attribution theory, thus reducing brand loyalty and increasing NWOM. The result supports the hypotheses.

This study does not factor in a time period for the observed effects. While the results indicate that hotels used for MIQ purposes have reduced corporate brand image, brand loyalty and purchase intention, this study does not establish the duration of the damage.

This study provides insight into consumers' perceptions of hotel brands that served as COVID-19 MIQ facilities. The originality lies in the discovery that the decision by hoteliers to opt to use their facilities for COVID-19 MIQ facilities was detrimental to corporate brand image and brand loyalty.

This paper aims to examine a number of Asian hotel companies to identify the hurdles and provide recommendations for those companies expanding internationally. Many Asian-based hotel companies have made their strategic choice to expand beyond their home territories by opening and managing hotels in non-Asian destinations to achieve growth. This is a strategic decision that other Asian hotel companies will eventually have to face when they follow their customers’ footsteps and/or enhance their brand awareness in non-Asian destinations for greater market penetration and other network advantages.

This is a review article that analyzes Asian hotel groups’ development practices based on content analysis of published references. The 2012 Hotels 325 list, the leading source of news and analysis for the global hotel industry, is used to identify the top Asian hotel management companies in the world. Their history is traced to examine key success factors for their growth and to identify issues and concerns for such companies’ development into non-Asian destinations.

There are a number of approaches that Asian hotel companies have adopted for international expansion based on their match with these companies’ key success factors.

The review focuses on the top 53 Asian hotel companies on the Hotels 325 list and does not cover smaller Asian companies that may have had successful global expansion records.

The paper provides high-level guidelines for what Asian hotel groups need to do to expand their business internationally outside of Asia or their traditional markets. Non-Asian hotel groups would also learn from this Asian wave of hotel development.

There has been limited, if ever any, previous literature on the strategic development choices of Asian hotel management companies. As such, this paper contributes to such an important but largely overlooked area in hotel management.

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of branding through franchising and hotel membership affiliations in Europe, where the chain penetration rate is still relatively low, albeit growing slowly, and where hotels are limited by historical preservation codes and building restrictions.

Although branding through affiliations has been a successful strategy in North America for decades, little is known of this strategy in Europe, where the fragmented hospitality industry comprises small and medium‐sized independent enterprises which are being subjected to increasing competitive pressure from large global chains. This exploratory study, using a purposive sample, examines the factors that European independent hotels consider before committing to a third‐party brand and whether they perceive their decision to have improved their overall performance.

It is revealed that these hoteliers perceive that they had significantly improved their overall market position situation without losing a large part of their uniqueness, independence and management control. Notwithstanding, some of the hoteliers were not satisfied with every aspect of their brand selection and it was concluded that the degree of success would be highly contingent on careful selection of the appropriate kind of branding tool option for each situation.

The main issues have been identified for hoteliers to consider when selecting a brand affiliation as well as the key components for the branding companies to include in their offers. Recommendations are provided for both.

Decision‐making criteria are provided for hoteliers in the form of a checklist to use including benefits and risks and other considerations, as well as a checklist of key success factors of leading hotel branding companies.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the impact of perceived information and communication technology (ICT) on creation of brand equity within service firms, more specifically upscale hotels. The relationships between ICT and three brand equity dimensions, i.e. brand image, perceived quality, and brand loyalty are examined.

The empirical research was conducted in 20 upscale hotels in Rome-Italy, collecting data from 335 guests.

Advanced ICT directly influences perceived quality and image, while the impact of ICT on loyalty is mediated by perceived quality. Additionally, positive and significant relationships are found between the three brand equity dimensions.

The lack of significance of ICT impact on loyalty needs further attention. Future studies could center on this specific relationship, examining whether hotel companies that implement technology efficiently are able to deal with loyalty.

Managers are encouraged to invest in advanced technologies as their adoption and subsequent perception among guests can shape brand image and perceived service quality, thus influencing brand equity from the consumer perspective.

The contributions of this paper are fourfold. First, the ICT and customer-based brand equity concepts are studied together in the hotel context. Second, the inter-relationship among the three brand equity dimensions is analyzed. Third, the model is tested from the guest perceptive, as customers themselves can provide the most valuable inputs for business strategies. Finally, the work contributes to the service field by providing an empirical evidence on the potential and impact of advanced technology.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of brand familiarity and brand fit on purchase intention towards the offerings of co‐branded hotels.

Data were gathered from 198 respondents and two co‐branded hotels in Taiwan were assessed.

The findings showed that the fit between co‐brands mediate the relationship between brand familiarity and purchase intention. In particular, a well‐known co‐branded hotel with a high level of brand fit could directly or indirectly affect consumer decision‐making processes regarding purchase intention towards the co‐brand. Conversely, a less familiar co‐branded hotel had a positive effect on purchase intention only if respondents perceived a good fit between allied brands.

Brand fit could be a more important factor than brand familiarity in influencing the success of hotel co‐branding strategies. Future research to examine the co‐branding concept in different social and cultural contexts and also from different perspectives, such as owners or managers, is recommended.

Most hospitality studies focus on co‐branding between hotels and restaurants. This study empirically investigated the effects of co‐branding on consumer behavior in the hotel sector.