Measuring the brand loyalty of customers towards online booking platforms

Abstract

This study investigates the brand loyalty of consumers in the online booking platform industry. The Mabalingwe Nature Reserve served as a case study while the Moolla and Bisschoff brand loyalty model was used to measure brand loyalty across 12 antecedents. The original model was developed for the fast-moving consumer goods industry, but also validated in various sectors such as the banking industry, pharmaceutical industry, services and agriculture. The objectives of this study were to validate the model for use in online booking platforms, to measure the reliability of the data and then to measure the relative importance of the twelve brand loyalty antecedents. Online questionnaires were distributed via an online link by the booking managers of Mabalingwe Game Reserve, and 131 responses were captured. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy indicated a statistically adequate sample. The questionnaire was validated, and the data was found reliable. The most important brand loyalty antecedents are Customer satisfaction and Brand trust. Culture is the least important brand loyalty antecedent. Regarding latent variable identification, Brand quality and Brand relationship are the most important factors (explaining a variance of 13.1% and 8.7%, respectively), while Economic conditions represent the least factor (3.0%). The study culminated in a model to measure brand loyalty of online booking platforms. This model can be operationalised by managers, researchers and also academia.