Assessing the Impact of Brand Equity and Demographic Characteristics on Brand Loyalty: The Mediating Role Played By Customer Experience in United Arab Emirates' Hotel Industry

The hotel industry has grown rapidly in recent years, becoming the most competitive environment. As a result, industry players strive to outsmart competitors by creating brand equity to enhance brand loyalty; however, the impact of brand equity and demographic characteristics on brand loyalty is sketchy. In this study, we assess this impact in United Arab Emirates' hotel industry by using customer experience as the mediating role. We selected a total of 694 participants at three 3-star hotels and two 5-star hotels in the United Arab Emirates. The Mann-Whitney test showed no statistically significant differences in brand loyalty (p< .05) by gender, and the Kruskal-Wallis test showed a moderately statistically significant difference (p> .05) and a highly statistically significant difference (p> .07) in brand loyalty by age and income groups, respectively. A positive correlation was found between customer experience and the different dimensions of brand equity. Similarly, a positive relationship (R= .716) was found between customer experience and brand loyalty using linear regression analysis. These findings will benefit managing authorities and key decision makers who seek to increase the productivity and profitability of their hotels.