Examining the formation of attitudinal, conative and behavioural loyalty: an empirical analysis in the hotel industry

Abstract

This study examines the dimensional structure of the brand loyalty construct in the hotel industry context. Following recent developments in loyalty studies, brand loyalty is proposed as a three-dimensional construct consisting of attitudinal loyalty, conative loyalty and behavioural loyalty. In addition to directly affecting behavioural loyalty, attitudinal loyalty influences behavioural loyalty indirectly through conative loyalty. This conceptualisation is supported by the statistical analysis and provides an improvement of the brand loyalty construct compared to the existing conceptualisations, such as four-stage, three-stage, and two-stage brand loyalty models. This study provides an important contribution to extend an understanding of the complex structure of brand loyalty, especially in a hotel industry context.