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European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies ISSN: 2501 - 9988 ISSN-L: 2501 - 9988 Available on-line at: http://www.oapub.org/soc doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1066594 Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2017 MEASURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN THE UAE HOTEL INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE Hassan Abbas Dost Mohamadi, Mohd Shukri Ab Yazid, Ali Khatibi, S. M. Ferdous Azam Graduate School of Management, Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies, Management and Science University (MSU), Section 13, 40100 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia Abstract: Customer satisfaction is important to evaluate why hotels succeed or fail, and why do hotels have varying levels of performance. It seems that hotels that provide higher service quality do have higher levels of performance that confirms a higher number of satisfied customers. If it impacts the organization's performance, then it is important to know the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This study has investigated the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in UAE hotel industry perspective. Primary data were used to identify the relationship strength between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The use of primary data enabled the researcher to measure all the dimensions. This study is significant in the sense that it will allow the understanding of the concept and framework of the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty relationships that takes into account the comparative nature with conventional business. This will also support and enrich theory and model of service quality in UAE’s business environment. Finally, this will generate greater awareness among UAE hotel industry on the importance of service quality and its effectiveness. Keywords: service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, UAE, hotel industry Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 225 Hassan Abbas Dost Mohamad, Mohd Shukri Ab Yazid, Ali Khatibi, S. M. Ferdous Azam MEASURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN THE UAE HOTEL INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE 1. Introduction Tourism industry has significantly benefited the UAE towards the improvement of economic reform (Anwar & Sohail, 2004; Bagaeen, 2015; Singh & Prashar, 2013). Hence, the country needs to ensure that adequate hotels are built to accommodate this growing number of tourists. In this aspect, UAE, as one of the most visited nations in the world, has greatly benefited from the tourism industry (Karatepe & Tizabi, 2011). Due to recent increase in the tourists’ arrivals, the government has prioritised this sector and concentrated on the development of infrastructures to accommodate the tourists coming to USE. For instance, the government provide funds to build infrastructures such as construction of hotels, roads and airports (Akoum, 2014). Customer satisfaction is important to evaluate why hotels succeed or fail, and why do hotels have varying levels of performance (Abraheem et al., 2011). It seems that hotels that provide higher services do have higher levels of performance that confirms a higher number of satisfied customers (Amin et al., 2013). If it impacts the organization's performance, then it is important to know the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Satisfaction is a crucial factor that will lead to customer loyalty. When customers have good experience towards the goods and services, the level of loyalty is high. In addition, business firm should be able to retain their customers for the purpose of successfulness. Providing a good services or produce items based on the customer’s expectation is very important. This is because customers are the main key for the business firm to stay longer and successful in the industry. Therefore, the business firm should be able to identify the factors the will contribute to the customers satisfaction in order to retain them. By doing so, the business firm may further improve their products and gain competitive advantage. Therefore, this study aimed at identifying the determining factors of service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards hotel industry in UAE. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/soc/index.php/EJMMS/article/view/266 European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2017 226