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Using the Chiayi International Band Festival (CIBF) as an example, this study attempts to examine the relationships between visitor involvement, visitor satisfaction, place attachment, and visitor loyalty. A survey was carried out from December 25, 2010, to January 3, 2011, and was able to obtain 400 valid responses. The study initially theorizes, based on literature review, that satisfaction contributes greatly to place attachment and loyalty, and visitor involvement is just an antecedent of satisfaction. However, the result indicates that visitor involvement is in fact a strong contributing factor of visitor loyalty. Furthermore, the study proposes that the casual relationship between visitor involvement and visitor satisfaction is indirect. The originally proposed model is then revised accordingly.

This study uses the social identity theory and relationship marketing theory to investigate customer satisfaction, commitment, trust and loyalty towards hospitality brands. Therefore, the author develops and empirically tests the relationships among these constructs. The methodology involved the use of structured equation models to investigate the hypothesised relationships. The results suggest that customer brand identification has a positive influence on loyalty, commitment, satisfaction and trust. The study also implies that commitment mediates the relationships between the three relational constructs (customer identification, trust and satisfaction) and brand loyalty.

Purpose – This study draws on conflict management literature to examine service recovery by service organizations and its effect on the important marketing outcomes of customer perceptions of service quality (satisfaction, trust, attribution/praise, and value) which influences customer retention rate (loyalty) and thus firm profitability.Design/methodology – Data from 412 banking customers are first employed to test the study’s model, and the results are subsequently cross-validated using a sample of 421 health-care customers.Findings – In services marked by moderate to low customer contact (i.e., task oriented) such as banking, effective conflict management tends to increase customer satisfaction, trust, and perceived customer value. It also has a positive effect on customer loyalty, albeit mediated by the above three variables. However, in high contact service contexts (i.e., personal oriented) like health care, conflict management seems to have relatively weak direct and indirect effects on customer loyalty.Research limitations/implications – The single country (Malaysian) origin of the present study’s data suggests the need for corresponding research in a Western context, where customers likely have different service expectations. Additionally, the research scope could be extended to focus on the relational nature of conflict management (the way in which a conflict is framed and resolved) in service recovery and how this moderates the relationship between perceived service quality and customer loyalty. The bi-industry approach taken in this research could also be extended to other low- and high-contact service sectors.Practical implications – Service organizations may benefit from training their employees on conflict management, honing skills in sensing and halting potential customer conflicts, and instituting a rapid and procedurally robust conflict resolution mechanism.Value/originality – This research is the first to examine firm’s conflict management across two service sectors. It contributes to theory by situating conflict management at the crux of the service failure/recovery relationship quality debate and underlining its relevance for a range of desired outcomes namely, customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer value attribution or customer praise, and customer loyalty.

Coffee shops are becoming more aware that brand loyalty can be an effective strategy for securing a competitive edge in business. To supplement current understanding of the importance of coffee shop branding, this study investigates the role of personality traits and congruity in the formation of brand loyalty. This study finds that personality traits have direct effects on congruity and customer satisfaction, the two defining factors of brand loyalty. Overall, our results suggest that the interaction of personality traits, congruity, and satisfaction is essential to the process of influencing coffee shop customers’ brand loyalty.

This study attempts to evaluate the antecedences of customer loyalty and the moderating effect of social media. Three antecedences are evaluated in this study, including service quality expectation, product innovation, and customer relationship management. It investigates their impact on the dependent variable, which is customer loyalty and also study their relationships in the presence of the mediating effect of customer satisfaction and moderating effects of social media. The present study was conducted in the hospitality sector of Pakistan, in which eight hotels and restaurants have been studied. The sample was collected from three major cities of Pakistan, namely, Multan, Faisalabad, and Lahore. This present study provides essential intuition for managers and market analysts on building strong customer relationship management through social media and to increase customer loyalty through different factors.

The competitive nature of the hotel industry has given the impetus to practitioners and researchers to invest in Customer Retention strategies and research. Although numerous studies have investigated Customer Retention in the hotel industry, there is still uncertainty regarding Customer Retention in emerging markets. This study, therefore, adds to the existing knowledge by exploring Customer Retention in Ghana, an emerging market. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey of 873 customers of 56 hotels in four regional capitals located in the southern part of Ghana. Findings indicate that service Tangible and Reliability indirectly relates hotel Customer Retention in Ghana, an emerging market.

This chapter examines the relationship between destination image and loyalty, and empirically determines the constructs that may influence tourist satisfaction with heritage tourism, which ultimately influences destination loyalty. Using data collected in the cultural heritage sites of Shiraz, Iran, it employs structural equation modeling for analysis. Evidence from the study results indicates that heritage tourists’ perception of destination image has a positive effect on their satisfaction and revisit intentions. This analysis provides insights into the behavioral intentions which may serve as an appropriate basis to boost tourist visits and revisits to a heritage destination.

Using Chiang Mai Night Safari, Thailand as a case, this research is to understand the relationship between service quality, place attachment, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty. A two-stage sampling approach is used while proportionate stratified sampling is applied to determine the strata sample size. A convenient sampling approach selects the participants within each stratum that involves choosing every element after a random start. Four hundred of 450 questionnaires are usable and analyzed the study. The result suggests an effective intermediary between service quality and tourist satisfaction. This study also adds managerial implications concerning service/product differentiation and competitive advantage over competitors. Meanwhile, future studies on destination personality uniqueness of destination emotions are suggested.

This chapter aims to identify integrated marketing communication (IMC) in the context of business to business to consumer (B2B2C) and empirically test a number of hypotheses related to the selected constructs. A model of the IMC was tested in a survey conducted among stakeholders in the selected field. Professionals responsible for communication and branding activities need to evaluate the relative contributions of the IMC in the B2B2C perspective.

This chapter addresses the concept of loyalty from a consumer culture theory perspective.

We investigated loyalty in the context of annual (French) music festivals and their ritualized meanings for consumers with a multi-method approach, both qualitative and quantitative methods.

From our study loyalty appears as: (a) social rather than individual; (b) outcome of a social evaluation of emotional experiences rather than individual satisfaction; (c) temporally and (d) spatially structured and structuring. This stands in contrast to dominant conceptualizations of loyalty that emphasize individual’s satisfaction as antecedent of loyalty.

Our findings take off from Fournier and Yao’s (1997) and Fournier’s (1998) suggestions that loyalty can be reconceptualized as relationships. However, we argue that these relationships are as much a matter of social relations between people than between people and brands (or brands as anthropomorphized by brand communities) that are performed ritually and repetitively. This research highlights the necessity to reconsider both the definition of loyalty and organizations’ main loyalty strategies, which are individual-centric and do not consider the social and cultural environment of consumers.