Tài sản thương hiệu dựa trên góc độ khách hàng trong xây dựng thương hiệu khách sạn: Nghiên cứu thực tế đối với khách sạn 3 sao trên địa bàn thành phố Hà Nội

Nghiên cứu phân tích những tác động của các thành phần tài sản thương hiệu (Lòng trung thành đối với thương hiệu, Nhận biết thương hiệu, Chất lượng cảm nhận) của thương hiệu các khách sạn đối với ý định sử dụng dịch vụ. Thông qua việc phân tích 105 khách du lịch đang lưu trú tại khách sạn 3 sao trên địa bàn thành phố Hà Nội. Mời các bạn cùng tham khảo!

CONSUMER-BASED BRAND EQUITY IN HOTEL BRANDING:

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON 3-STAR HOTELS LOCATED IN HANOI TÀI SẢN THƯƠNG HIỆU DỰA TRÊN GÓC ĐỘ KHÁCH HÀNG

TRONG XÂY DỰNG THƯƠNG HIỆU KHÁCH SẠN:

NGHIÊN CỨU THỰC TẾ ĐỐI VỚI KHÁCH SẠN 3 SAO

TRÊN ĐỊA BÀN THÀNH PHỐ HÀ NỘI

MA Nguyen Thu Huong; MA Hoang Thi Thu Trang

Thuongmai University

huongnt.t@tmu.edu.vn

Abstract

This paper analyses the impacts of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) parts (i.e., brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality) of hotel brands on purchase intention Through a study including 105 travellers in Hanoi, it reveals that two CBBE elements relate to directly in-fluence purchase intention Results suggest that hospitality service providers could generate pos-itive customer responses by improving brand equity through different initiatives Offering consumers integrated information about a brand from different aspects could enhance their be-havioral intentions Managers should provide more accurate estimations of marketing efforts and organize information input in a more integrated manner to facilitate message processing and accessibility, which result in increased behavior intention.

Keywords: consumer- based brand equity; hotel branding

Tóm tắt

Nghiên cứu phân tích những tác động của các thành phần tài sản thương hiệu (Lòng trung thành đối với thương hiệu, Nhận biết thương hiệu, Chất lượng cảm nhận) của thương hiệu các khách sạn đối với ý định sử dụng dịch vụ Thông qua việc phân tích 105 khách du lịch đang lưu trú tại khách sạn 3 sao trên địa bàn thành phố Hà Nội, nghiên cứu đã chỉ ra rằng có hai thành phần (Nhận biết thương hiệu và Chất lượng cảm nhận) có ảnh hưởng trực tiếp tới ý định sử dụng dịch vụ của du khách Bên cạnh đó, kết quả cũng cho thấy rằng các nhà quản trị của khách sạn

có thể tạo ra phản ứng tích cực của khách hàng bằng cách nâng cao tài sản thương hiệu thông qua các cải tiến khác nhau như cung cấp thông tin đầy đủ và các tính toán chính xác hơn về các

nỗ lực marketing để tạo điều kiện thuận lợi cho việc xử lý thông điệp và khả năng tiếp cận

Từ khóa: tài sản thương hiệu, xây dựng thương hiệu khách sạn

1 Introduction

The global integration has been attributed to the dramatical increase of tourism service sector regrading the quantity and quality dimensions This development has made a change in hotel’s branding, which require managers to recognize the importance of brands [Yu Xie H & Boogs D.J (2006)]

Many previous studies indicate that the profound of brands which can impact on customer’s attachment through creating sensible and emotional feelings of the superior quality services This lead to the advantage of companies comparing with their rivals in attracting new customers and maintaining repeat ones’s loyalty Moreover, a branded hotel will have the power

to negotiate with partners and suppliers, contributing to the ability of applying more incentives

to their customers [Motameni R & Sharhrokhi M (1998)] On the other hand, a strong hotel brand will create higher value for customers and larger profit for shareholders [Kotler & Keller (2006)]

In branding, hotel services’ brands have many differences from commodity’s brands due

to the distinct characteristics between service and good Hotels often offer two kind of products composed of goods sold such as food, beverages, souvenirs and other goods; and services pro-vided as main services and additional services [Nguyễn Văn Mạnh & Hoàng Thị Lan Hương (2008)] In particular, main services including room and catering one satisfy the necessity of customers; Additional services could consist of swimming pools, spa, events, travel, etc

Quality of service is measured by customer satisfaction [Parasuraman et al., 1988] and customers’ overall assessment of each service provided during their stays [Bùi Xuân Nhàn (2009)] Ccustomer satisfaction is based on the difference between their perception and expecta-tions The expectations of customers will vary depending on standard group of hotels The mission

of the hotel is to design a level of service quality that is higher than the expectations of customers and manage system to minimize errors to improve customer perception In addition, service qual-ity is positively related to consumers’ emotions, service qualqual-ity is positively related to behavioral intentions and consumers’ emotions are positively related to behavioral intentions Moreover, the model postulates that emotional mediated the effect of service quality on behavioral intentions [Ladhari R (2009)] As a result, the hotel needs to create a positive feeling for the customer in order to influence their buying behavior and loyalty so far

The changes in the customer behavior in buying process requires a lot of hotel’s adapta-tion in new competitive market Building brands for hotel services is not only the implementaadapta-tion

of services activities to satisfy their customers, but more important their follow-through on all aspects of their customer’s insight So, through applying consumer-based brand equity model, hotel managers can apprehend the reason why their target customer chose their hotels instead of their rivals As a result, each hotel has the basis of selecting their different points in order to en-courage brand loyalty to their own services From all of these above, there is necessary of the re-search about the impact of consumer-based brand equity toward purchase intention

2 Background

2.1 Consumer-based brand equity definitions

“Brand equity” is one of the term widely used by groups of academics and businesses over the world In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in brand equity studies because

of their effect on business valuation, especially when its results are useful for the purpose of merge and acquisitions A considerable amount of literature has been published on brand equity since the 1980 These previous studies have reported that brand equity has formed in multi di-mensions, for example financial - based, market - based, customer - based aspects To date there

has been little agreement on what its definitions, effects, and measurement methods, but to the end, most of researches consider that brand equity exists in customer’s mind-set and play a role

as the potential intangible asset to create business’s competitive advantage

Currently, there is two sides of brand equity researches The first group, who agree with using this term, they have done many researches based on Aaker’s model [1996, 1991], and Keller’s model [2003, 1993] Aaker [1996, page.17] identifies consumer-based brand equity is

“a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol that adds to or sub-tracts from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm’s consumers.” While Keller [1993] determines “Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect

of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand”, and consumer response

to marketing is defined in terms of consumer perceptions, preferences, and behaviour arising from marketing mix activity (e.g., brand choice, comprehension of copy points from an ad, reac-tions to a coupon promotion, or evaluareac-tions of a proposed brand extension) The common de-nominator in all models is adoption of one or more dimensions from the Aaker model such as Christodoulides and De Chernatony [2010], Liu et al., [2017], Yoo and Donthu [2001] On that basis, this research uses three common elements as perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand aware-ness in CBBE model, and purchase intention as consumer’s response Purchase intention (or will-ingness to buy) is the likelihood that a buyer intends to purchase a product or service [Liu et al., (2017), Dodds et al., (1991)], brand have an impact on their purchase behaviour [Kotler & Keller (2012)], brand purchasing intentions are the most important outcome expected from brand per-ception [Foroudi P., Jin Z., Gupta S., et al (2018)], and perper-ception with higher level can influence consumer’s purchase intention [Pappu & Cooksey (2005)], and brand equity increase purchase intentions and consumer preferences as its consequences [Cobb-Walgren et al., (1995)]

Being on the opposite side of that which the first group agree with “brand equity” term, several researchers prove both the theoretical and empirical evidence to point that “brand equity” appearance is vague and it confuse a lot of practices in business management On the top of this group is Paul Feldwick who was a former CEO of IBM Group [Feldwick P (2002)] consider brand value is a set of brand associations and form a brand description in customer’s mind-set

It has profound influence on consumer’s buying process, enhancing company’s market perform-ance shown through their brand preferences and brand loyalty

Despite of some limitations of the theoretical framework, several authors have done their research about brand equity in the service sectors in order to test the hypothesis based on the dif-ferent points of goods and service In this field, hotel branding and applying consumer - based brand equity have also been well-thought - of topic research, for example Liu et al., [2017], Cobb-Walgren et al., [1995], Bill Xu & Chan, [2010], Kayaman & Arasli [2007] These researches did not mention about Brand Associations which is the last component of Aaker’s model due to a duplication of several observed variables belongs to Perceived Quality Therefore, this research use (1) Perceived Quality, (2) Brand Loyalty, (3) Brand awareness as 3 components of CBBE model to examine whether each dimension has direct impact on consumer’s purchase intention

in providing hotel services

iBrand loyalty

According Aaker [1996], brand loyalty is the attachment to a brand/ brands consumers have Brand loyalty was and is still vital dimension in CBBE model even though some concep-tualizations position brand loyalty as controversial elements and/or a consequence of brand equity, which consists of brand awareness and brand associations The inclusion of brand loyalty as a part of brand equity allows marketers to justify giving it priority in the brand building budget [Aaker (2013] Several long - term benefits could be gained such as the lower elasticity in price increase and higher one in price decrease, the greater support when brand extensions and co-branding, brand cooperation exist, the stronger defense against competitors’ marketing activities [Keller (2003)] Higher brand loyalty could create re-purchase decisions in the next times, and make the brand as a primary choice when consumers buy related goods and services; Brand loy-alty can facilitate favorable brand attitude and generate higher consumer’s purchase intention for hotel brands [Liu et al., (2017)] Hence,

H1: Brand loyalty has a positive effect on consumer’s purchase intention for hotel services

iPerceived Quality

This is one element of the consumer’s brand equity, which is determined as “the con-sumer’s perception of overall quality or superiority of a product or service with respect to the product or service’s intended purpose and overall feeling about the brand” (Aaker [1996], Keller [2013]) Perceived quality is considered a “core/primary” facet across customer-based brand eq-uity frameworks and customer is likely to perceive the brand as offering superior quality will be-come more brand loyal [Kayaman R & Arasli H (2007)] In his studies about service quality, Zeithaml [1998] indicates that there is a wide-speared trend in studying the relationship between service quality and purchase intentions but they are insufficient works linking purchase intentions

to purchase behaviours Considering his findings, Liu et al., (2017)] conceptualizes perceived quality as a brand’s value proposition that renders customers endogenous to value creation, and embraces a process orientation in the service encounter that has superiority over other hotel brands Due to being associated with brand preferences protecting consumers from rivals’ en-ticement, greater perceived quality is an important advantage of businesses in their competition [Yoo B & Donthu N (2001)] Hence,

H2: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer’s purchase intention for hotel services

iBrand awareness

The most popular element considered in consumer - based brand equity studies is brand awareness Brand awareness is the consumer’s ability to recognize and recall a brand [Keller (1993)] The creation of brand awareness is the first stage in building brand equity [Aaker (1991)] Customers will trigger a positive response if they have familiarity of a brand due to having a little information [Bill Xu J & Chan A (2010)] Hence,

H3: Brand awareness has a positive effect on consumer’s purchase intention for hotel services

iPurchase intention

Purchase intention is a customer plan to buy a specific brand According to Chang et al.,

[2008], in service branding, ‘purchase intention is the willingness to continue using the service provided by specific suppliers’ The purchase intention represents the possibility that consumers

will plan to purchase a certain product or service in the future (Wu et al., 2011, cited in [Calvo-Porral & Lévy-Mangin J.-P (2017)] Regarding the approach of Aaker [1996, 1991], brand equity has a positive impact on the purchase intention of customers, and marketers are interested in un-derstanding consumer’s purchase intention, so that they are able to properly segment the market and as a source to their decision making [Ping (2014]

2.2 Hotel branding

Until now, there is few number of researches focusing on hotel branding, divided into two parts: branding through employees’s attitude and branding through customers’s perceptions For the first part, the research showed that to deliver the brand promise, hotels need to emphasize the unique features of their service offering as reflected in the brand and their employees [King

& Grace D (2013)]; for the second part, when applying CBBE model, it is important to understand that:

As Liu et al., [2017] wrote:

“The different effect of each CBBE element on different consumer responses indicates that marketing efforts on each aspect of CBBE must vary Managers should provide more accurate estimations of marketing efforts and organize information input in a more integrated manner to facilitate message processing and attitude accessibility, which result in increased behavior intention”

As Kayaman and Arasli [2007] indicated:

“Customer based brand equity is not only valuable tool for hotel practitioners but also for other service industry practitioners to evaluate their marketing efforts Necessary feedback can

be obtained from consumers for this evaluation will aid in: identifying service product related problems; identifying advertising/positioning problems; and also providing feedback to the employees on where improvements need to be made”

As Bill Xu and Chan [2010] suggested:

“ The input of experiential marketing program with emphasis on the socio-psychological needs into hotel brand equity management In other words, hotel companies are able to positively impact brand equity by ensuring the fulfillment of guests’ socio-psychological needs during their stays.”

In conclusion, research on branding for hotels is still limited in quantity This is an opportunity for the authors to continue research and to find theoretical frameworks and practices

to help hotel managers improve overall service performance

3 Purpose, Question, and Hypothese of Research

This research aims to understand and analyze the effect of each consumer - based brand equity on purchase intention Therefore, it is going to focus on two questions:

Q1 These elements of consumer - based brand equity (Brand awareness, Brand loyalty and Perceived quality) have a negative or positive effect on consumer’s purchase intention? Q2 How is the impact of these elements on consumer’s purchase intention?

And 3 hypotheses will be tested including:

H1: Brand awareness has a positive effect on consumer’s purchase intention for hotel services

H2: Brand loyalty has a positive effect on consumer’s purchase intention for hotel services

H3: Perceived quality has a positive effect on consumer’s purchase intention for hotel services

4 Methodology

4.1 Kind of data

This research used the primary data which was collected through questionnaires We un-derstood clearly that questionnaires have its own advantages, for example the ease of distribution within geographical area; and drawbacks, for instance the limit of honesty in correspondents’ an-swers To keep under control, we designed our questionnaires with structured questions which are considered and investigated by some specialists in tourism service

4.2 Questionnaire design

The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect consumer’s assignment about hotel services, which are to construct perceptual measurements of each dimension in consumer’s brand equity model

The questionnaire includes three parts Part 1 consists of all observed variables of three di-mensions in CBBE model In more details, Brand awareness has 3 variables, Brand Loyalty has

4 variables, and Perceived Quality has 11 variables Purchase intention as a dependent variable, which is observed through 3 variables Part 2 is composed of respondent’s demographic charac-teristics They are Age group, Gender, Occupation, Current living province Part 3 is the part for interviewers with hotel’s general information A total of 27 questions including 21 ones in part 1 and 6 ones in part 2; on the other hand, 24 structured questions and 3 non - structured questions

(See Table 1)

Table 1 Core items of each dimension in designed questionnaire

CBBE

Brand

loyalty I will not stay at other hotels if this hotel is available I will not stay at other hotels if this hotel is available

This hotel is my first choice compared to other hotels

I would not switch to another hotel the next time

I consider myself to be loyal to this hotel

Yoo et all (2001)

Source: Liu et al., 2017

4.3 Data collection

With the purpose of this study, the population is all tourists consuming hotel accommoda-tion services in Hanoi However, in this study limited resources, the research team focused on three-star hotels in Hanoi A list of three-star hotels was recorded on the Tourism Administration’s database of 37 hotels

The study uses a random combined with convenient sampling method Accordingly, the random sampling method was used to select the hotels participating in the survey A convenient method of selecting a respondent is a tourist who is using a hotel accommodation service The sample size is based on the standards of the analysis method, this study uses an Exploratory Factor Analysis to test the validity of scale and a linear multiple regression with the least squares coefficient model to determine the level of each CBBE element’s impact on consumers’ purchase intention As a result, a sample size, which is calculated by 5 times the total of these observed variables, is 105 questionnaires [Hair (2010)]

After calculating the sample size, the authors list all of three stars hotels in Hanoi and select hotels taking part into Collaborators moved to these places and discussed to receptionists and reception managers about survey plans The number of questionnaires distributed among all hotels participating in the survey

4.4 Data analysis

The study used Cronbach’s Alpha to test the reliability of the scale, and the Explore factor

Brand

awareness I am aware of the hotel.I can quickly recall the symbol or logo of the hotel

I can recognize the hotel among other competing brands

Yoo et all (2001)

Perceived

quality The staff treat you as a special and valued consumer.The hotel has up-to-date equipment

The appearance of members (clean, neat, appropriately dressed)

The hotel staff exhibits a good manner

The hotel provides its services at promised times

The hotel staff handles complaints of consumers effectively

The hotel staff actively communicates with consumers

Attractiveness of the hotel

The knowledge and confidence of the staff

The quality of food and beverages

The hotel staff anticipates your specific needs and serves you appropriately

Kim and Kim (2005)

Purchase

intention I will consider staying at this hotel.I am glad to stay at this hotel

I am glad to recommend this hotel to others

Moon et al., (2008) Liu and Brock (2011)

analysis to determine the validity of the scale The validity of the scale consists of two parts: con-vergence and discriminant validity Convergent validity explores whether or not observed vari-ables represent the varivari-ables to be studied Discriminant validity indicates that the observation variable is sufficiently specific to represent the variable being studied

4.4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient

Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ranges from 0.7 to 0.8, which is very good with a range of 0.8 - 0.95, acceptable between 0.6 and 0.7 And if less than 0.6 are required to exclude from the study [Hoàng Trọng & Chu Nguyễn Mộng Ngọc (2011)] If the value of Alpha> 0.95, then the difference in content on the scale for the observation variable, which means that the same measure

of phenomena [Đinh Bá Hùng Anh & Tô Ngọc Hoàng Kim (2010), page.142]

In order to be able to hold the observation variable, the result of the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of the component scale should satisfy both conditions: (1) the total variance greater than 0.3; (2) Cronbach’s Alpha if the variable is smaller than the current Cronbach’s Alpha Based on the results of the analysis, the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient table is expressed as:

Table 2 Item-Total Statistics Scale Mean if

Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item

Deleted

Corrected Item-Total Correlation

Squared Mul-tiple Correla-tion

Cronbach’s Alpha if Item Deleted Brand Awareness Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.87

Perceived Quality Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.933

These tables figure out the high level of reliability However, the high Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is a signal for the duplication of the scale, or it may be assumed that the respondent thinks that many of the questions are of the same nature

4.4.2 Validity results

The study used the extraction method Principal Components Analysis with the Varimax rotation technique And these conditions to satisfy in factor analysis include: (1) factor loading values >0.5; (2) 0.5 <= KMO coefficient <= 1; (3) Bartlett’s Test <0.5; (4) Eigenvalues> = 1; (5) Percentage of variance> at least 50 percentages [Hair (2010)]

Based on the results of the analysis, the results of the first EFA analysis of 3 independent variables with 21 observed variables and 1 dependent variable with 3 observed variables showed

a violation of factor loading values The elimination of variables conducted and applies the EFA analysis successively until the desired result is obtained Accordingly, the final result shows that two factors were extracted, and each scale reach the coverngence and discriminant value

Table 3 Correlation Matrix

Table 4 KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Purchase Intention Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.882

BA.Q1 BA.Q2 PQ.Q8 PQ.Q9 PQ.Q10 PQ.Q11

Correlation

BA.Q1 1.000 739 583 403 426 431 458

BA.Q2 739 1.000 747 484 384 402 492

BA.Q3 583 747 1.000 550 435 444 569

PQ.Q8 403 484 550 1.000 629 493 501

PQ.Q9 426 384 435 629 1.000 662 507

PQ.Q10 431 402 444 493 662 1.000 681

PQ.Q11 458 492 569 501 507 681 1.000

Table 5 Total Variance Explained

Table 6 Rotated Component Matrixa

5 Findings

In order to conduct hypotheses test, the multiple regression model is used to test and explain the causal - effect theory In this study, linear multiple regression is the appropriate method for validating hypotheses To test for three hypotheses, the multiple regression model was developed as follows:

Yi = β0 + β1iX1i + β2iX2i

+ ei

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx Chi-Squaredf 407.08221

Component

Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

Variance Cumulative% Total Variance% of Cumulative %

Component