| With the trends of promoting reward membership program, launching technological innovations, and rebranding in the hotel industry, hotel brand love should be examined in hospitality studies because several innovative hospitality strategies are implemented to establish customers' love feelings toward hotel brands. Based on the triangular theory of human love, the main purpose of this study is to establish and test a three-component theoretical structural model of hotel brand love, and to provide practical implications and suggestions to hotel branding and marketing managers. A total of 425 usable responses were collected through Qualtrics. Participants select one of five sample hotel firms (Marriott International Inc, Hilton Worldwide, InterContinental Hotels Group, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc, and Hyatt Hotels Corp) with one of its sub-brands to respond questionnaire. Results of this study found that both intimacy for a sub-brand and passion for a sub-brand were significantly related to ideal-self-sub-brand congruence; however, commitment for a sub-brand was not significantly related to ideal-self-sub-brand congruence. Besides, this study proved the positive influences that ideal-self-sub-brand congruence has on brand love for the sub-brand. Then, brand love for the sub-brand significantly exerted positive influence to brand love for the corporate brand. Moreover, brand love for the sub-brand significantly exerted positive influences on revisit intention for the sub-brand, positive WOM for the sub-brand, and price premium for the sub-brand. In examining the proposed moderating effects, this study found that customer involvement of a sub-brand significantly improves the positive influence from brand love for that sub-brand to brand love for its corporate brand. Additionally, public self-consciousness significantly improved the positive influence from brand love for the sub-brand to price premium for the sub-brand. |
