Enhancing customer-brand relationship by leveraging loyalty program experiences that foster customer-brand identification

Purpose: This study aims to investigate ways in which hotel loyalty programs can be designed to enhance customer’s identification with a hotel brand and develop a sustainable customer-brand relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a cross-sectional design survey questionnaire for data collection and used structural equation modeling data analysis to test the conceptual model. Findings: The three loyalty program experiences proposed (member-to-member similarity, memorable loyalty program experience and loyalty program social benefits) exerted significant positive effects on customer-brand identification (CBI), which, in turn, influences customer-brand relationship elements, including trust, commitment and switching resistance. Originality/value: This study expands the scope of CBI literature, which previously focused substantially on brand level experiences, by being the first to explore a new set of CBI antecedents with a focus on loyalty program experiences. Furthermore, the current study’s findings delineate specific strategies to uphold the social and experiential aspects of loyalty programs that can develop sustainable customer-brand relationships.