International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

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International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman

Customer loyalty marketing research: A comparative approach between

hospitality and business journals
Myongjee Yoo a, , Billy Bai b,1
a
b

Florida International University, Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management Biscayne Bay Campus, 3000 N.E. 151 Street, HM 335, North Miami, FL 33181, USA
University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Parkway Box 456023, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Keywords:
Business research
Consumer behavior
Customer loyalty
Hospitality research
Relationship marketing

a b s t r a c t
Businesses, including the hospitality sector discovered the importance of customer retention as a key
success factor. Thus, customer loyalty is a topic that has received much attention since the 1990s as relationship marketing has become a popular marketing scheme. The purpose of this study was to review
published research on customer loyalty to better understand its evolution and development in the hospitality industry. Specically, the study took a comparative approach by examining published research
from academic hospitality journals and business journals. A total number of 262 articles were reviewed.
Topical areas, industry application, and research methods were discussed. Lastly, study limitations were
discussed.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
Hospitality marketers recognize that it is difcult for businesses to survive just by attracting new customers as most industry
segments are mature and competition is so erce. Additionally,
service, as the core product of hospitality businesses, is distinctive
with goods especially for being considerably affected by the customers involvement and experience. The experience that exists
in the consumers mind is what creates a differentiation point
from competitors so businesses strive to provide such products
and services to satisfy the consumers demand (Pine and Gilmore,
1998). Thus, hospitality marketers make eminent efforts to provide good experiences and ensure consumer delight by engaging
in relationships with customers (Berry, 1983; Morgan and Hunt,
1994).
Many organizations progressed relationship strategies intended
to maintain and enhance customer relationships and further obtain
long-term competitive advantage. Hospitality marketers also
believe that relational engagement leads to customer longevity,
which is ultimately associated with customer loyalty (Berry, 1983;
Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Businesses, including the hospitality
sector discovered the importance of retaining their existing customers as a key success factor. Thus, customer loyalty is a topic
that has received much attention since the 1990s as relationship

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 305 919 4535; fax: +1 305 919 4555.
E-mail addresses: myoo@u.edu (M. Yoo), billy.bai@unlv.edu (B. Bai).
1
Tel.: +1 702 895 4844; fax: +1 702 895 4870.
0278-4319/$ see front matter. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2012.07.009

marketing has become a popular marketing scheme. The attention toward loyalty marketing has not declined and businesses are
still trying to nd various ways to enhance the effectiveness of loyalty marketing (McCall and Voorhees, 2010; Sheth and Parvatiyar,
2000; Shoemaker and Lewis, 1999; Srinivasan and Moorman,
2005).
All in all, marketing research, including customer loyalty topics,
in the hospitality industry has been consistently growing and many
scholars made efforts to provide the research status quo (Bowen
and Sparks, 1998; Dev et al., 2010; Oh et al., 2004; Svensson et al.,
2009). Based on the previous hospitality marketing research, this
study attempted to take a closer look on a specic topic of customer loyalty. More recently, such an approach on narrowed area
of interest has been employed in various hospitality and business
review studies. Scholars such as Leung and Law (2007) analyzed
research particularly on information technology within the hospitality industry, Lu and Nepal (2009) on sustainable tourism,
Anderson and Xie (2010) on hospitality revenue management,
Kusluvan et al. (2010) on human resources management issues in
the tourism and hospitality industry, and Hesford and Potter (2010)
on hospitality accounting as well. The purpose of this study was to
review published research on customer loyalty to better understand its evolution and development in the hospitality industry.
Specically, the study took a comparative approach by examining
published research from academic business and hospitality journals. This study analyzed topical areas and research methods by
examining the prominent trends and further suggested directions
for future research.

M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

2. Literature review
2.1. Signicance of customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is described as a customers repeat visitation
or repeat purchase behavior while including the emotional commitment or expression of a favorable attitude toward the service
provider (McAlexander et al., 2003; Petrick, 2004; Shoemaker and
Lewis, 1999). Numerous studies emphasize the value of customer
loyalty to be signicant. It is known that loyal customers visit
frequency is higher and make more purchase than non-loyal customers do. They are also less likely to switch to a competitor brand
just because of price and other special promotions and bring in new
customers through positive word-of-mouth which can sometimes
save a huge amount of the expenses for advertising (Haywood,
1988; Oliver, 1999; Petrick, 2004; Shoemaker and Lewis, 1999).
Petrick (2004) argued that repeat customers are more than just
a secure source economically, but they can also be information
channels that casually create a linkage to their friends, relatives, colleagues, and other probable consumers and thus enable businesses
to uphold a clientele base.
One of the most essential theories of loyalty marketing is that a
small increase in loyal customers can bring a signicant increase in
protability to a business (Reichheld, 1993; Reichheld and Sasser,
1990). Reichheld and Sasser (1990) found that a 5% increase in customer retention resulted up to a 125% increase in prots in their
study in the service industry. Moreover, it has been known that it
is six times more expensive to plan marketing strategies to attract
new customers than it is to retain existing customers (Petrick,
2004). Companies realized they need to do all they can to retain
the top 1% of the customers of the pyramid top as it was discovered
that they generated as much prot as 50% of those at the bottom
end of the pyramid (Forte, 2011). On the whole, loyalty marketing
emerged as being necessary and ideal as customer loyalty has been
recognized as a major source of competitive advantage for rms by
having a powerful impact on performance. It has been recognized
that enhanced customer loyalty reduces customer acquisition costs
and increases revenue, which ultimately lead businesses to greater
protability (Lam et al., 2004; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990).
Industry operators are fully aware of the positive impact that
customer loyalty brings to their businesses and they have been constantly exploring various approaches to increase customer loyalty.
Given the interest and its high recognition on customer loyalty,
research on the subject expanded to various areas and industries both theoretically and practically. The domain of loyalty was
limited to customers repeat purchase behavior in early studies. However, research on customer loyalty evolved appreciably
and subsequent studies started to propose the customers psychological attachment to the service provider or the brand as an
important aspect (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000). Overall, loyalty has
been perceived as a multi-dimensional construct and its research
progress shows immense development (Bowen and Chen, 2001).
2.2. The construct of customer loyalty
To date, customer loyalty has been mostly accepted in the
marketing literature as a three dimensional conceptualization:
behavioral, attitudinal, and composite (Bowen and Chen, 2001;
Jones and Taylor, 2007). The behavioral perspective measures
loyalty as the static outcome of a dynamic process including
antecedents such as actual consumption, repeat purchase, duration,
longevity, frequency, proportion of market share, and word-ofmouth recommendations (Baloglu, 2002; Jones and Sasser, 1995;
Mechinda et al., 2008). Probability of future purchase of a brand
and brand switching behavior are also examples that have been
addressed to assess behavioral loyalty (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973;

167

Ostrowski et al., 1993). Ultimately, behavioral loyalty involves the

actual share of wallet the degree of buying or using of the service
and their future purchasing intention (Jones et al., 2007; Jones and
Sasser, 1995; Kim et al., 2008; Tanford et al., 2010). Therefore, academic and the real business world both emphasize its importance
since it is of utmost crucial to the service provider and it highly
relates to revenue and prosperity (Chao, 2008).
The attitudinal approach conceptualizes loyalty as a function
of a psychological process (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978) and measures loyalty in terms of a consumers strength of affection toward a
brand (Baloglu, 2002; Petrick, 2004). Trust has been considered as
a key factor in building customer loyalty (Bowen and Chen, 2001;
Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Emotional attachment or commitment
could be dened as liking the company or the brand, enjoying the
stay at a particular property, and having a sense of belonging to the
company.
Composite loyalty implies that neither the behavioral nor the
attitudinal loyalty approach alone describes loyalty. Instead it suggests that loyalty should be simultaneously considered from a
behavioral and attitudinal perspective (Backman and Crompton,
1991; Dick and Basu, 1994; Petrick, 2004). Dick and Basu (1994)
proposed repeat patronage (behavioral dimension) and relative
attitudes (attitudinal dimension) to conceptualize loyalty. Relative attitudes were described into three categories: cognitive
those related to informational determinants toward a brand, affective those related to feelings toward a brand, and conative
those related with behavioral characters toward a brand. They
argued that true brand loyalty exists only when consumers attitude and intention all point to a focal preference toward the brand
at the same time. Similarly, Oliver (1999) argued that consumers
develop a sense of loyalty in the order from cognitive, affective,
and to conative and nally in a behavioral manner. Since composite measurements of loyalty combine both the behavioral and
the attitudinal perspective, customers preference of product, frequency of purchase, recency of purchase, total amount of purchase,
and propensity of switching brands are taken into consideration for
measurement (Bowen and Chen, 2001).
2.3. Factors that inuence customer loyalty
Numerous studies attempted to identify the determinants of
customer loyalty (Dick and Basu, 1994; Lee and Cunningham, 2001;
Yang and Peterson, 2004). Researchers may have distinctive ideas
in conceptualizing loyalty, thus, resulting in different discussions
in verifying the antecedents of loyalty. Nonetheless, it has been
suggested that customer loyalty may be fostered with distinctive
outcomes depending on its factors and therefore, it should be managed and integrated strategically (Shoemaker and Bowen, 1998).
Overall, factors that inuence customer loyalty were categorized
into two big sets in this study: one related to internal factors, and
the other related to external factors. Internal factors are described
as factors associated internally, which affect the organization to
serve its customers directly. The rm holds the ability to facilitate
with the strategies and tactics. In contrast, external factors are conditions external to the rm and relate to how consumers recognize
the brand with respect to the brand competition. These are often
formidable as control is limited from the rm (Duffy, 2003; Kotler
et al., 2010).
2.3.1. Internal factors
Examples of internal factors include the product itself (brand),
service quality, promotion mix, and costs. A brand is the genuine
value that customers demand today, thus a product that creates an
extraordinary experience becomes a loyalty-enabling brand. Promotions and marketing tactics are utilized not only to create a
strong brand from enhancing customer experience and building

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M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

relationships, but also to efciently manage competition. Service

quality is a component of the product that customers perceive and
it is known as a critical determinant of loyalty. Recovery strategies and service determinants are highly related to service quality
as it has been measured as a form of attitude often linked to satisfaction (Duffy, 2003; Kotler et al., 2010). Whereas satisfaction is
either an end state or appraisal process resulting from exposure to
a service experience (Oliver, 1993), quality refers to the evaluation
of the service attributes that is primarily controlled by the service
provider (Baker and Crompton, 2000). On the whole, it is expected
that the better the perceived quality of services, the higher customers intention to repatronize that service provider (Baker and
Crompton, 2000; Lee and Cunningham, 2001).
Costs can be categorized into economic and transaction costs.
Economic costs are costs that customers have to sacrice to acquire
a product or service (Monroe, 1990). Transaction cost is a type of
nonmonetary cost that exists in exchange processes as a consequence of the interaction among various factors. The intangible
characteristic of service makes such difculty prevailing and gives
rise to differences in the transaction costs (Williamson, 1987).
Consequently, transaction difculty negatively affects customer
loyalty. The service providers increase in understanding customers tastes and preferences speeds up the transaction process
and further increases customer satisfaction and loyalty through
customization (Lovelock, 1983).
2.3.2. External factors
Examples of external factors include switching costs, situational factors, perceived value, satisfaction, commitment, and trust.
Switching costs are the costs involved in changing from one service
provider to another (Heide and Weiss, 1995). Switching costs are
the costs that are expected to encounter in the future, whereas
economic and transaction costs are those incurred in the present
(Lee and Cunningham, 2001). Switching costs include monetary,
behavioral, search, and learning related, thus can be economic and
emotional (Yang and Peterson, 2004). Once a customer is involved
in a transaction relationship, he/she is more likely to become behaviorally loyal because the cost of switching transaction partners
gets higher. Customers often become locked into their service
provider after considering information search cost, perceived risk,
and substitutability of the service provider (Dick and Basu, 1994;
Lee and Cunningham, 2001).
Marketing literature also suggests that consumers make purchases based on situational factors (Wicker, 1969). Situational
factors can be understood as the actual or perceived opportunity for engaging in attitude-consistent behavior (e.g., in the case
of stockouts of preferred brands), incentives for brand switching through reduced prices (i.e., deals) of competing brands, and
effective in-store promotions that might increase the salience of
a competing brand over one normally preferred by the consumer
(i.e., by impacting on the evoked set in a decision environment)
(Dick and Basu, 1994, p. 105).
Perceived value is dened as a customers opinion of a products
value. It has been associated with loyalty either directly or indirectly as it is essential for various marketing activities. Customers
are strongly motivated to repeat patronage when they are provided
with high value (Yang and Peterson, 2004). In context, ones intention to repeat patronage to a service provider will be lower when
perceived cost is higher, as well as when service time is longer
(Dodds and Monroe, 1984; Zeithaml, 1988). Satisfaction refers to
the overall affective response resulting from the service experience
(Oliver, 1993). Many scholars related satisfaction to customer loyalty as a positive loyalty determinant (Bowen and Chen, 2001; Lam
et al., 2004; Yang and Peterson, 2004).
The concept of trust is derived from the analysis of personal relationships because it is considered an inherent characteristic of any

valuable social interaction and has become a popular issue due to

the relational orientation in loyalty marketing (Morgan and Hunt,
1994). Trust may include various meanings, nevertheless, all the
terms share the same idea that trust is a feeling of security based on
the belief that the customers behavior is guided and motivated by
the favorable and positive intentions toward the service provider.
Therefore, the lesser the doubt, the lesser the risk in the relationship, and thus, enabling the development of a valuable relationship
(Ballester and Aleman, 2001).
Commitment has been characterized in a variety of ways that
can be classied into affective (emotional), continuance (obligation), and value-driven (benets). Affective commitment is an
emotional attachment to the brand that creates a sense of belonging (Baloglu, 2002; Jones et al., 2007). Continuance commitment
is based more on relational motives, focusing on termination, or
switching costs. It carries a sense of actual or perceived obligation that could engender negative emotions such as the feeling of
locked in or stuck (Jones et al., 2007). Value commitment is the
value of benets received, yet distinctive from positive tangible
benets of reward membership, for being loyal to a specic brand
(Mattila, 2006).

3. Methodology
The hospitality journals that were reviewed were selected based
on the study by McKercher et al. (2006). Hospitality journal rankings were decided on the aggregate importance scores in their
study. The four journals that received the highest scores were
selected and they are mentioned below. The business journals
were selected based on the study by Hult et al. (1997). Scholarly
marketing journals were reviewed from a marketing doctorate/non-doctorate-granting institution criteria. The selected four
journals for this study were overall ranked the highest.
The hospitality journals included Cornell Hospitality Quarterly
(hereafter, Cornell Quarterly), International Journal of Hospitality
Management (hereafter, IJHM), Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
Research (hereafter, JHTR), and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (hereafter, IJCHM). The business
journals included Journal of Marketing (hereafter, JM), Journal of
Marketing Research (hereafter, JMR), Journal of Consumer Research
(hereafter, JCR), and Journal of Retailing (hereafter, JR).
In total, 117 loyalty marketing focused articles published in
four hospitality-oriented (hereafter, hospitality) journals were
reviewed, and a total number of 145 loyalty marketing focused
articles published in four business-oriented (hereafter, business) journals were reviewed from 2000 to 2010. Using a similar
approach by Oh et al. (2004), one author classied the articles to keep consistency after a comprehensive discussion with
the other author along with inter-rater reliability check. Loyalty focused articles were selected based on previous research
as it was suggested that customer loyalty is a multi-dimensional
concept that consists of various aspects. Thus, based on the literature review, articles with topics related to the construct of
loyalty and inuential factors on loyalty were chosen. Overall, topics included repeat visit/purchase, customer retention, emotional
commitment, favorable attitude, relationship, positive word-ofmouth, and switching behavior (Dick and Basu, 1994; Haywood,
1988; Lam et al., 2004; McAlexander et al., 2003; Petrick, 2004;
Reichheld, 1996; Shoemaker and Lewis, 1999).
Only referred papers were included for the review and any
type of discussion notes, comments, reviews, and announcements
were eliminated. Overall, this study reviewed research subjects,
employed research methods, noteworthy research trends, and target industry applications. Several sub-categories had been adjusted
for this study because they were redundant or omitted. Finally,

M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

comparisons were made between hospitality and business research

on customer loyalty.
3.1. Research subjects
This study classied the research subjects based on the dimensions of customer loyalty and inuential factors on loyalty.
Consequently, the research subjects were categorized into two
main areas with three sub-categories under each. For the construct
of customer loyalty, studies that focused their investigation on customer loyalty from the behavioral perspective were classied under
Behavioral and studies that focused on the attitudinal perspective were classied under Attitudinal. Others that included both
perspectives were classied under Composite.
The other main subject area was related to inuential factors on
customer loyalty, including sub-categories of internal factor, external factor, and both. Studies that included internal factors that can
affect customer loyalty such as service quality and cost were classied under Internal and studies that included external factors
such as satisfaction, perception, and situational factors were classied under External. Those studies that included both factors were
classied under Both.
3.2. Industry application
Industry application was examined according to which industry the data was collected from. Conclusively, a total number of
12 categories emerged: Airline, Automobile, Casino/Destination,
Electronics/IT, Finance, F&B, Hotel/lodging, General hospitality,
General/Multiple, Grocery, Retail, and Others. A number of studies collected data from university students or faculty members
under the condition that they were consumers. For example, if a
study conducted an experiment on undergraduate students to test
their perception levels on retail brand loyalty, the target industry
was regarded as Retail. Therefore, industry application was categorized under Retail. Likewise, if a study surveyed data from
panels or consultants to investigate a hotels loyalty program, the
target industry was regarded as Hotel/lodging since the study
aimed that specic industry. Casino/Destination included casinos
or destination resorts. Electronics/IT included computers, cellular
phones, television, and online businesses. Finance included banks
and credit card companies. Some hospitality studies did not purposely target to a specic industry or business; therefore, were
classied under General hospitality. On the other hand, many
business articles targeted multiple or general industries. Hence,
they were classied under General/Multiple. Finally, a few other
industries such as cruise, spa, cosmetics, newspaper, and telecommunication were categorized under Others.
3.3. Main analysis methods
Many studies employed multiple data analysis techniques.
However, this study only included the main analysis method
of each article that was used to test the hypotheses or answer
the research questions. Based on Oh et al. (2004), the main
research analysis methods were classied into eight categories
with some modication. Descriptive method was separated
into two categories: Descriptive/Content analysis and ttest/Chi-square/Cross-tabulation analysis/Correlation. This study
separated t-test, Chi-square test, cross-tabulation, and correlation from descriptive analysis because they tested signicance.
Explanatory methods such as content analysis and importanceperformance analysis, used in qualitative studies, were categorized
under Descriptive/Content analysis. In addition, there were
few articles that utilized more than one main method to test
the hypotheses or to answer the research question and thus, a

169

category named Multiple methods was added. Most of those

studies implemented mixed methods as the research design. All
other multivariate statistical methods and qualitative data analysis methods were used occasionally, which were categorized under
Others. Time series analysis was excluded because none of the
reviewed articles employed it.
Overall, the eight categories of data analysis method is summarized as the following: Analysis of (co)variance (univariate and multivariate) (hereon, AN(C)OVA/MAN(C)OVA), Descriptive/Content
analysis, Factor/Cluster/Discriminant analysis, Linear/Non-linear
modeling, Structural equational modeling (hereon, SEM),
t-test/Chi-square/Cross-tabulation analysis/Correlation, Multiple
methods, and Others. GLM (general linear model) repeated measures was included in analysis of (co)variance, while regression
analysis and logit models were all included in Linear/Non-linear
modeling.

4. Findings
4.1. Study topic review and trends
Table 1 represents the results of research subject classication
by each journal. In summary, hospitality journals published a total
of 117 loyalty articles (18%) out of 655 marketing articles. Business
journals published a total of 145 loyalty articles (9%) out of 1655
marketing articles. Although the total number of loyalty articles
published in business journals was higher, the overall percentage
turned out to be lower because two business journals (JM and JMR)
were already specically marketing oriented.
Consequently, hospitality research studies focused more on attitudinal loyalty, while business research studies indicated a more
even distribution among behavioral, attitudinal, and composite loyalty issues. Both hospitality and business research showed a similar
tendency in terms of factors that affected customer loyalty. Fig. 1
represents the comparison on the research subjects between hospitality and business journals. Subsequently, a brief summary is
presented about each research subject on hospitality and business
studies.

4.1.1. Loyalty construct

Attitudinal loyalty (55%) received far more attention than
behavioral loyalty (14%) among hospitality journals. Some of the
most common topics on attitudinal loyalty were related to customers perceived value, repurchase intention, and satisfaction
(Bowen and Chen, 2001; Gupta et al., 2007; Hanaia et al., 2008;
Skogland and Siguaw, 2004). Customers emotional perceptions
and attitudes (Mason et al., 2006; Ryu and Jang, 2007), brand
image and brand perception (Back, 2005; Hsu, 2000), and emotional
long-term relationships (Hendler and LaTour, 2008; Mattila, 2006;
Scanlan and McPhail, 2000) were some other attitudinal loyalty
topics that were given much attention. In general, behavioral loyalty studies included topics related to the effectiveness of loyalty
schemes and rewards programs (Lucas and Bowen, 2002; Taylor
and Long-Tolbert, 2002). Yet, results show a considerable focus on
composite loyalty (32%) because many studies incorporated the
attitudinal perspective (Baloglu, 2002; Jang and Mattila, 2005).
In contrast, not only was behavioral loyalty (31%) more
researched than attitudinal loyalty (30%), but it was also more
popular within business journals than hospitality journals (14%).
Similar to hospitality journals, many behavioral loyalty studies
from business journals attempted to understand the nancial
performance of customer loyalty programs (Liu, 2007; MeyerWaarden, 2007), or dealt with topics related to schemes such as
coupon proneness (Swaminathan and Bawa, 2005), customized

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M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

Table 1
Customer loyalty research by subject.
Subject

Hospitality

Business

Journal

Cornell

IJHM

JHTR

IJCHM

Construct
Behavioral
Attitudinal
Composite

3
16
14

1
17
9

2
15
8

3
16
13

9
64
44

Factors
Internal
External
Both

17
6
10

16
5
6

9
7
9

10
8
14

Total

33

27

25

32

Total

JM

JMR

JCR

JR

7
55
38

21
16
19

10
9
15

5
11
9

9
7
14

45
43
57

31
30
39

54
107
101

21
41
38

51
27
39

44
22
33

23
7
26

17
8
9

6
10
9

14
5
11

60
30
55

41
21
38

111
57
94

42
22
36

117

100

56

34

25

30

145

100

262

100

promotions (Zhang and Wedel, 2009), and loyalty cards (Demoulin

and Zidda, 2009).
Studies on attitudinal loyalty from the business journals
turned out to be quite similar to those from the hospitality
journals. Gustafsson et al. (2005), for example, investigated the
dimensions of satisfaction-relationship commitment and how
they impacted customer retention. Brand relationships (Aggarwai,
2004; Thompson and Sinha, 2008), loyalty program experience
(Allaway et al., 2003), and customer relationship management
(Auha et al., 2007), and strengthening customer loyalty through
emotional bonding (Yim et al., 2008) were investigated. Examples of composite loyalty studies include customers purchase
intentions by satisfaction level (Ganesh et al., 2000) and brand
experience (Brakus et al., 2009).
4.1.2. Factors inuencing loyalty
Both hospitality and business journals showed a parallel trend
in terms of determining the factors inuencing customer loyalty.
Overall, studies dealt with internal factors (44% from hospitality
journals and 41% from business journals) more than external factors
(22% from hospitality journals and 21% from business journals), and
a considerable amount of studies covered both factors (33% from
hospitality journals and 38% from business journals).
In terms of internal loyalty factors, hospitality research concentrated on service failure and recovery strategies (McCollough, 2000;
Namgung and Jang, 2010) or service determinants (McCain et al.,
2005), while business journals showed more interest on the products or specic promotions (Ailawadi et al., 2008; Feinberg et al.,
2002). Both hospitality and business research contributed a decent
amount of studies related to information technology as well. For
example, study topics such as website quality (Bai et al., 2008) and

Table 2 represents the industry application categorization and

Fig. 2 illustrates the comparison between hospitality and business
journals. Most of the studies collected data from general consumers
targeting all types of businesses as a whole (52%). Such results are
due to the fact that nearly all the articles from the business journals were conducted from a broader perspective. In particular, data
was collected frequently from business sectors such as retail (13%),
followed by electronics (7%), grocery stores (6%), bank and credit
card companies (4%), airlines (3%), and automobile (3%). Data collection from other industries such as cosmetics, newspapers, and
telecommunication comprised a total of 10%.
Conversely, the range of businesses in the hospitality industry
is limited so data collection for hospitality articles was specic. The
majority of data was collected from the Hotel/lodging sector (36%),
followed by the restaurant business (27%), and General hospitality
businesses as a whole (24%) mostly from travelers and potential
tourists. Additionally, data collection from casinos showed 5% and
there was only one study from an airline company. Other industries
such as convention/meeting, cruise, and resort/leisure/timeshare

50
40
30
20
10

Attitudinal

Composite

Hospitality

4.2. Industry application review

60

Behavioral

online business (e-commerce) antecedents (Srinivasan et al., 2002)

were explored.
Customer satisfaction was the dominant subject related to
external loyalty factors within hospitality research (Bowen and
Chen, 2001; Gupta et al., 2007; Skogland and Siguaw, 2004). Business research included more various external loyalty subjects such
as switching costs (Patterson and Smith, 2003; Lam et al., 2010;
Zauberman, 2003) together with customer satisfaction (Ganesh
et al., 2000; Yim et al., 2008).

70

Internal

External

Business

Fig. 1. Research subject comparison between hospitality and business journals.

Both

M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

171

Table 2
Customer loyalty research by industry application.
Industry application

Hospitality

Business

Journal

Cornell

IJHM

JM

JMR

JCR

Airline
Automobile
Casino/Destination
Electronics
Hotel/lodging
Finance
F&B
Retail
General hospitality
General/Multiple
Grocery
Others

1
0
3
0
11
0
7
0
10
0
0
1

0
0
2
0
9
0
11
0
3
0
0
2

0
0
1
0
9
0
6
0
6
0
0
3

0
0
0
0
12
0
8
0
9
0
0
3

1
0
6
0
41
0
32
0
28
0
0
9

0
0
5
0
36
0
27
0
24
0
0
9

3
4
0
4
0
2
2
7
0
26
3
5

0
1
0
3
0
1
0
3
0
24
0
2

0
0
0
3
0
0
0
0
0
17
2
3

1
0
1
0
0
3
0
9
0
8
4
4

4
5
1
10
0
6
2
19
0
75
9
14

3
3
0
7
0
4
0
13
0
52
6
10

5
5
7
10
41
6
34
19
28
75
9
23

2
2
3
4
16
2
13
7
11
29
3
9

Total

33

27

25

32

117

100

56

34

25

30

145

100

262

100

JHTR

IJCHM

received increasing attention while spas were targeted occasionally, showing 9% all together.

4.3. Methodology review

Table 3 summarizes the research designs and methods and gures of comparisons between the hospitality and business journals
are illustrated below (see Figs. 36). In summary, 90% of the articles
were empirical studies and 85% used a quantitative research design.
Also from an individual perspective, empirical studies (85% from
hospitality research and 94% from business research) and quantitative research designs (79% from hospitality research and 90% from
business research) comprised the majority. While most of the qualitative studies were conceptual, there were a few qualitative studies
that attempted to apply empirical research designs. Studies barely
utilized mixed methods (see Table 3, Figs. 3 and 4). Those studies
that implemented mixed methods resulted in multiple stages of
data collection.
The majority of the hospitality articles employed primary
eld survey (66%) as the main data collection whereas business
articles showed a more comparable distribution within data collection methods among primary eld survey (36%), secondary data
(29%), and experiments (23%). Many business journal articles used
secondary data or experiments compared to hospitality journal
articles. On the whole, interviews and focus groups (6%) were seldom used and case studies (less than 1%) or simulations (1%) were
found to be rarely employed (see Table 3 and Fig. 5).

Total
JR

70
60
50
40

20

In terms of main analysis methods, SEM (26%), Linear/Nonlinear modeling (22%) and Descriptive/Content analysis (21%), were
most frequently employed for hospitality research. Overall, causal
modeling data analysis techniques were more popular than general
signicant tests such as t-test, Chi-square test, and cross-tabulation
analysis. Casual modeling data analysis techniques were used more
often in business research as well. Linear/Non-linear modeling
(38%), SEM (23%), and AN(C)OVA/MAN(C)OVA (20%) were the three
data analysis methods utilized most commonly. On the contrary
to hospitality research, analysis of (co)variance and GLM repeated
measures was used more often because a large number of business studies were based on experiments that were aimed to nd
out the disparity among diverse groups or using stimulus. Despite
Linear/Non-linear modeling was used frequently both in hospitality and business research, hospitality research employed more
regression analysis while business research employed more logit
models. Logit models were particularly employed more frequently
by exploiting secondary data within business research (see Table 3
and Fig. 6).
The objective of multivariate statistical methods such as factor analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis is not to
test a hypothesis or answer a research question, therefore, was
not used often by itself. However, these methods were often
used together with other methods such as analysis of variance,
regression, or structural equational modeling. Numerous studies
used factor analysis or cluster analysis to categorize multiple variables and then used other statistical data analysis methods to test
the hypotheses. Some studies used multiple statistical methods

80

30

Hospitality
Business

10
0

Fig. 2. Industry application comparison between hospitality and business journals.

172

M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

Table 3
Customer loyalty research by method employed.
Method

Hospitality

Business

Journal

Cornell

IJHM

JHTR

IJCHM

Type of study
Conceptual
Empirical

8
25

0
27

1
24

9
23

18
99

Research design
Qualitative
Quantitative
Mixed methods

9
24
0

1
24
2

0
25
0

12
20
0

Data collection/orientation
Case study
Experiment
Interviews/focus groups
Primary eld survey
Secondary data
Simulation
Multiple
Other

1
4
0
17
2
0
1
8

0
2
2
19
3
0
1
0

0
3
0
22
0
0
0
0

Main analysis methods

AN(C)OVA/MAN(C)OVA
Descriptive/Content
Factor/Cluster/Discriminant
(Non)Linear modeling
SEM
t-Test/Chi/Correlation
Multiple methods
Others

2
10
0
7
3
5
1
5

1
0
0
6
12
3
3
2

Total

33

27

Total

JM

JMR

JCR

JR

15
85

5
51

0
34

2
23

1
29

8
137

6
94

26
236

10
90

22
93
2

19
79
2

7
48
1

0
34
0

2
21
2

3
27
0

12
130
3

8
90
2

34
223
5

13
85
2

0
1
4
19
7
0
0
1

1
10
6
77
12
0
2
9

1
9
5
66
10
0
2
8

0
5
4
20
24
1
2
0

0
5
1
13
11
2
2
0

0
20
2
1
1
0
1
0

0
3
3
18
6
0
0
0

0
33
10
52
42
3
5
0

0
23
7
36
29
2
3
0

1
43
16
129
54
3
7
9

0
16
6
50
21
1
3
3

3
1
1
3
12
2
3
0

1
14
0
9
4
1
0
3

7
25
1
25
31
11
7
10

6
21
1
22
26
9
6
9

3
7
0
21
17
1
6
1

4
0
0
21
4
0
4
1

19
2
0
1
0
0
3
0

3
3
0
10
13
1
0
0

29
12
0
53
34
2
13
2

20
8
0
38
23
1
9
1

36
37
1
78
65
13
20
12

14
14
0
30
25
5
8
4

25

32

117

100

56

34

25

30

145

100

262

100

160
140
120
100
Hospitality

80

Business

60
40
20
0
Conceptual

Empirical

Fig. 3. Customer loyalty research design between hospitality and business journals.

140
120
100
80
Hospitality
60

Business

40
20
0
Qualitative

Quantitative

Mixed Methods

Fig. 4. Customer loyalty research method between hospitality and business journals.

M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

173

Hospitality
Business

Fig. 5. Customer loyalty data collection between hospitality and business journals.

160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

Hospitality
Business

Fig. 6. Customer loyalty data analysis methods between hospitality and business journals.

because it was impossible to test a variety of hypotheses with a

single procedure. Other methods such as correspondence analysis,
multi-dimensional scaling, and ethnography, were seldom used for
data analysis (see Fig. 6).

5. Conclusion
This study reviewed customer loyalty articles published in four
hospitality journals (Cornell Quarterly, IJHM, JHTR, and IJCHM) and
four business journals (JM, JMR, JCR, and JR) from 2000 to 2010.
In general, study results showed similar research trends in terms
of study topic and study design between n hospitality journals
and business journals. Both journals examined similar research
subjects. The only exception was that hospitality research journals focused on more attitudinal loyalty while business research
journals showed more interest in behavioral loyalty. Likewise, the
majority of the studies conducted empirical research using quantitative research designs and most frequently selected primary eld
survey as data collection methods. Linear/Non-linear modeling and
SEM were employed quite frequently in both areas, and Descriptive/Content analysis was used dominantly for qualitative studies
in both areas as well.
One division where the biggest discrepancy existed was that it
seemed hospitality research focused more on hypotheses testing or
answering research questions by using signicance testing methods and regression analysis. For business research, more models
using Linear/Non-linear modeling methods with secondary data
(actual performance data) were suggested or more experiments

using analysis of variance and GLM repeated measure methods

were conducted.
In sum, hospitality loyalty marketing research progressed by
focusing on customers emotion and the cognitive aspect of purchasing. While some research from hospitality journals adopted
theories from sociology and psychology, the majority attempted
to apply marketing theories and ndings to further develop its
research scope. For example, the loyalty framework (Dick and Basu,
1994), commitment-trust model (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), relationship marketing theory (Berry, 1983; Gronroos, 1990, 1994),
service quality theory (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Parasuraman
et al., 1985, 1988; Zeithaml et al., 1996), satisfaction model (Oliver,
1980, 1993), involvement theory (Beatty et al., 1988), and brand
equity theory (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993) were most commonly
integrated from business research to develop models. The number of studies that developed models solely based on hospitality
research was scarce, which implies that more theory development
needs to be done in hospitality.
Loyalty research from business journals also focused on the role
of satisfaction and commitment and implemented theories from
social science and marketing. While theories such as relationship
marketing theory and service quality theory found in hospitality
research were also commonly adopted in business research, brand
extension theory (Aaker and Keller, 1990) and brand equity theory (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993) were recurrently applied. However,
business research showed a higher rate of behavioral loyalty articles in an attempt to estimate various types of nancial values
and applied joint models by combining a considerable amount of
theories and models that originated from economics and nance.

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M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

Studies that adopted models from hospitality research did not exist,
yet hospitality research was referred in some studies. Especially, as
loyalty programs were rst introduced from the airline industry,
those studies mainly contained loyalty program topics and compared loyalty program effectiveness to airline companies (Liu and
Yang, 2009) or the type of rewards as customization has been recognized as a success factor in service industries (Agustin and Singh,
2005; Noble and Phillips, 2004).
As mentioned before, hospitality business products are more
inuenced by customer experience and emotion as service is
intangible, heterogeneous, and the production and consumption
occur simultaneously. Therefore, while study topics showed similar
trends, hospitality research still conducted more research focusing on the customers, while business research focused more on
the rms performance. For instance, even on the same topic of
loyalty determinants, hospitality research generally centered on
what customers think, whereas business research normally investigated how customers react. As a consequence, it seems to make
sense for the discrepancy to exist with hospitality research journals
focusing more on attitudinal loyalty studies and business research
journals more on behavioral loyalty studies. It goes well along with
the fact that business research used far more secondary data and
experiments to understand consumers actual behavior or discover
determinants to build models upon them.
However, it is important to note that there exist differences
in orientation between hospitality journals and business journals, thus it is complicated to derive certain conclusions from a
comparative approach. It was expected that the research scope
within business journals would be more diverse as they serve
a broader audience than hospitality journals. Accordingly, business journals covered topics ranging from micro-level processes
to macro-level issues from psychology, marketing, sociology, economics, to anthropology. JM and JMR were specically positioned
as the leading scholarly journal in marketing discipline covering
a wide range of topics. The former focused on issues in marketing and marketing management where the latter focused more on
marketing research, from philosophies, theories, to methods. JCR
was particularly recognized for investigation on consumer behavior and JR focused more on the eld of retailing including both
products and services. Although some studies from JCR and JR covered the service industry, hospitality studies were rarely found. JM
and JMR relatively had a higher ratio of hospitality studies, but still
extremely low. Overall, business journals showed a higher level of
being interdisciplinary by targeting a variety of areas.
The impact factor for an academic journal indicates the average number of times published papers are cited up to two years
after publication. It is calculated based on a three-year period and
a higher value signies higher frequency of being cited in a given
period. Business journals showed an impact factor of on average
of 2.85 (JM; 3.77, JMR; 2.8, JCR; 2.59, JR; 2.257) while hospitality
journals showed 0.82 (Cornell; 0.549, IJHM; 1.382, IJCHM; 0.71,
JHTR; 0.653). It is assumed that studies from business journals
were cited more frequently because they covered a broad-spectrum
and hospitality studies are relatively specialized. Additionally, the
majority of business journals were published bi-monthly whereas
the majority of hospitality journals were published quarterly (one
business journal was published quarterly, and one hospitality journal was published bi-monthly) with an average number of 10
articles in each issue (except for IJHM). Therefore, business journals
were superior in quantity.
Customer loyalty and customer relationship management
earned substantial amount of interest for research especially during
the 1990s and early 2000s as chain hotels realized the importance of existing customers through brand extension. Research
at that time focused on understanding customers and developing
closer relationships to retain them as loyal customers (Dev et al.,

2010). Although, Internet marketing has emerged as a hot topic

during the 2000s as the World Wide Web became prominence, customer loyalty still remains as one of the most frequently addressed
topics in hospitality marketing research due to its prime importance (Kumar et al., 2010; Tanford et al., 2012). It is expected that
marketing communications, social media, service scapes, brand
management, sustainability will continue to gain interest in the
2010s, but the core idea is to incorporate smart usage of data as
hospitality businesses are clearly understanding the need to focus
their investments on protable relationships (Dev et al., 2010).
Thus, the main theme of customer loyalty in hospitality marketing research is expected to emerge by incorporating data-driven
marketing and a mixture of other marketing subjects. For example, evaluating the effectiveness of loyalty programs and schemes
will continue to be conducted using a mixture of data, methods, and industries. Despite that loyalty programs were developed
to increase protability for a rm, it has also been questioned
whether these schemes were merely provoked by competition
due to negative results (Meyer-Waarden, 2007). More recently,
hospitality marketers accentuated the importance of investing in
protable customer relationships (Dev et al., 2010), and many
scholars attempted to investigate the effectiveness of loyalty programs in terms of its performance (Liu, 2007; Lucas and Bowen,
2002). This trend may remain steady as attention on database
marketing is growing. The use of integrated data with innovative
analytical techniques is expected to support advanced research. As
the main objective of loyalty programs is to encourage customers
repeat purchase behavior by offering rewards, whether tangible or
intangible (Meyer-Waarden, 2007), future research should incorporate different types of rewards from a costbenet analysis
approach as well. Research on consumer behavior from a dynamic
perspective would be necessary to strategically manage loyalty
program/schemes as new traveler markets and diverse segments
are constantly emerging (Hanaia et al., 2008).
Although the number of studies on branding and E-loyalty/IT
were considerably smaller, these two research subjects are anticipated to acquire exceptional growth going on forward. Computers
are now regarded as commonplace and the Internet serves as
the main method for communication for the younger generations
(Piccoli, 2010), so research will be needed to acknowledge how to
effectively communicate and engage with generations born in the
late 1970s and thereafter. Social media is a dynamic eld rising as
a hot topic and many hospitality marketers are trying to maximize
its utilization. Consumers from diverse backgrounds are communicating more and exchanging abundant amount of information
through social media (Piccoli, 2010). It is expected that it will continue to receive attention, if not more. Additionally, mobiles are
stepping up as practical marketing devices as the usage rate of
smart phones is extensively increasing nowadays (Sileo and Rheem,
2010). Therefore, the use of mobile technology is expected to rise
as one hot topic for research along with social media. The Internet,
social media, mobiles, and further advanced technology are likely to
have an impact on customer loyalty and this should be investigated
in various phases and aspects.
Brand loyalty has developed into diverse areas from brand
preference to brand community. However, sub-categories such
as brand alliance and brand viability will probably emerge connected to customer loyalty. For example, GHA Discovery (global
hotel alliance) is an upgraded loyalty program, where different
hotel brands throughout the world participate under one universal program (Garrido, 2011). Las Vegas Sands Corporation recently
announced a 10-year brand alliance licensing agreement with
Intercontinental hotels (Stutz, 2010), and the Cosmopolitan Las
Vegas announced a partnership with Marriott International as well
(Benston, 2010). The hospitality industry often engages in a range
of brand alliance to enhance revenue and increase market share.

M. Yoo, B. Bai / International Journal of Hospitality Management 33 (2013) 166177

With the exploration of brand growth and the role of brands, brand
alliances should continue emerging and research on its outcome is
more likely to be pursued. Loyal customers have been known to less
likely switch to a competitor brand (Petrick, 2004; Shoemaker and
Lewis, 1999) and it has been discovered that loyalty programs play
an important role to customers on hotel brand selection (Barsky and
Nash, 2003, 2006). Therefore, it would be interesting to see what
type of impact brand alliance would have on customer loyalty and
loyalty program performance.
In terms of research methods, future academic research is
expected to advance by continuously implementing causal modeling data in more dynamic stages as businesses are striving to
obtain competitive advantages by understanding their customers
more deeply. Besides, it would be benecial by optimizing other
study designs for data collection such as case studies, experiments,
and secondary data. The majority of hospitality research exploited
primary eld surveys, which seems limited and under-utilized.
Overall, there should be an implementation of diverse methods
of data collection, data analysis techniques in future hospitality
marketing research.
To our knowledge, this was the rst study that specically
reviewed customer loyalty articles within the hospitality industry
that additionally took a comparative approach between hospitality
journals and business journals. However, there is no study without aws. Even though this study referred to the studies by Oh
et al. (2004) and Hult et al. (1997), the selection of journals, the
assortment of articles, and the classication process may be considered may be biased or subjective. Future studies may enhance
the inter-coder reliability by including more systematic analysis
and ensure the validity of the interpretations. Finally, observing
previous studies for a period of ten years may not be enough to
recognize its full evolution and development of research in the
two areas of customer loyalty discipline. Regardless of the aforementioned limitations, this study is expected to contribute to the
growing knowledge of customer loyalty research.
Acknowledgement
We graciouly acknowledge the support by the Caesars Foundation for this research.
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