Measuring Customer-Based Hotel Brand Equity: The Impact of Brand Equity on Perceived Value and Repurchase Intention

Little research has been done to measure customer-based brand equity in the hospitality industry, especially in the lodging segment. This study validates Yoo and Donthu’s three-dimension brand equity model which was drawn from Aaker and Keller’s (1990) multidimensional brand equity scale (MBE). Evidence was gathered through a consumer survey in the upscale hotels in China, measuring cognitive and behavioral brand equity at the individual hotel customer level. The relative importance of the dimensions of hotel brand equity in relation to customers’ overall evaluation of the hotel brand equity, as well as its impact on customers’ perceived value of the hotel and the likelihood of returning to the same hotels are also examined in this study. Three dimensions, “brand awareness/association”, “perceived quality” and “brand loyalty” of the customer-based hotel brand equity have been identified as expected, without deleting any of the items in the original scale. Regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between the constructs in the proposed model. “Brand awareness/association” was identified to be the most important factor in influencing customer-based overall hotel brand equity. In addition, other hypothesized relationships, like “overall brand equity is positively related to the customers’ revisit intention” were all supported by the results.