BAN 4499 Academic Training

Article Review
Troy library article: Increasing the brand loyalty in hospitality industry Author: Mustafa Tepeci Instructor: Dr. FINDLEY

Prepared by: Tu Anh Pham <1274090> email: tpham105321@troy.edu Orlando, 09/01/2011

MGT 3372: Hospitality Management, August 2011

Introduction
In recent years, the term brand loyalty has become growth more popular and it developed in a lot of branches like commercial, industrial or public services. Actually, if a company keeps maintaining a good brand or we call brand loyalty, this company will be firstly gain advantage competitive and then have a better business result. Nowadays, even brand loyalty is almost an intangible asset; however it contributes a large proportion to company success. Therefore, brand loyalty is the key to make a success for company. the article that I chose to write about is titled, "Increasing the brand loyalty in hospitality industry" of Mustafa Tepeci. Mustafa Tepeci indicates the importance of brand loyalty with the factors affecting brand loyalty in this article. In which the author suggests measures and recommendations for the hospitality manager. Tepeci stated that retaining existing customers will help company to gain more profit compared with using traditional methods such as market development, advertising etc. Also author wants to show that maintaining brand loyalty can add value and benefit in different ways many times greater than attracting new customers. In my opinion, this study is very useful for hospitality managers to work out for a reasonable strategy to maintain and develop the hospitality industry which has a lot of competition.

MGT 3372: Hospitality Management, August 2011

Claim
According to Mustafa Tepeci, the different company can be existed in the hospitality industry because they maintain a continuous source of income from tourists, visitors from the loyal customer. The regular or loyal customers are able to willing spend a huge amounts in the sequence of their preferred brand. That is why many companies in the service industry is launching a special promotion and customer loyalty programs for their long-term customers. Hospitality managers will find this article helpful in understanding the importance of the influence of brand loyalty to the efficiency of the business. In next following paragraphs, I will point out views and thesis clear of author about the importance of brand loyalty and the factors that created it.

Reason and Discusion:

The author points out that the key to increasing and maintaining market share is not just simply increase customers but keep them. In a further study of Adriana Noton (2007)1, brand loyalty is one of the most valuable assets of company in the hospitality industry which has a high level of competition. Therefore the other competitor is willing to use many ways to get the initial competitive advantage to attract customers. So in this point, I strongly agree with the author that brand loyalty is undeniable and very important. Loyal customer terminated the concern about reducing the price of the competitors and at the same time encouraging loyal customers buy new products which have the same brand (product development). If there is no brand loyalty, customers are easily confused or attracted to the other

MGT 3372: Hospitality Management, August 2011

same level of product especially in service and food industry. Therefore, there is no better choice of brand loyalty and to expand product development. Moreover, In the point of author about the strategy to develop brand loyalty for business managers. Tepeci suggested strategies such as: Offering added value features and consistently providing high quality service, Staying in touch with the customers and Segmenting customers by their buying habits. At these three points, I completely agree that these are basic ways to develop the brand. According to research by Atilgan (2005)2, when considered the relation between the similar products, customers tend to buy higher quality products rather than a less one. So enhance the value of the product is completely reasonable. For the classification and maintain customer relationships suggestion, this is one of the most interested issue in all industries nowadays. The study of Tsai (2005)3 showed that the classification of customers while maintaining the closed relationship can improve customer habitation on the product, as well as increase the competitive advantage of the brand and in results increase consumers recognition with these products. However, these points: Select the service-oriented staff, Building a system that facilitates

organization-wide planning and implementation. I do not strongly agree with the author. Nowadays, because of the development of information technology, companies do not necessarily use the direct communication between employees and customers that we should use the type of online service options and customer management by some available software applications. it helps to reduce costs and easily adapt to current generation. According to internet world status, there was 78.3% of the population of North America use the internet transaction instead of the traditional type4.

MGT 3372: Hospitality Management, August 2011

Conclusion
This is really a helpful article for developers and brand managers. Tepeci mentioned the importance as well as essential to create a strong brand. There are many changes in the hospitality industry since the article was published, but Tepeci is analyzed clearly the basic components contribute to the success of brand management. As I mentioned yet, I am not very strongly agree with author, but it is still a very useful and valuable article.

MGT 3372: Hospitality Management, August 2011

References
1. Adriana Noton, 2007, Brand loyalty is one of a Companys Most important assets 2. Atilgan, E.Aksoy, S. Akinci, S.2005. Determinants of the brand equity. 3. Tsai, 2005. Intergrated marketing as management of holistic consumer experience. 4. Internet world stats, sited at http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm