Assessing equivalence of hotel brand equity measures in cross-cultural contexts

The authors synthesize the measurement equivalence or invariance literature and illustrate how to conduct equivalence analyses by using a hotel brand equity model as an example. The illustration focuses on how to assess the model's generalizability across three selected cultural or cross-country factors: the hotel's brand identity (domestic vs. foreign), the customer's first language (Mandarin vs. English), and the customer's country of residence (Asia vs. Europe vs. North America). Results support the model's configural and metric generalizability across the three cross-cultural contexts. The authors show how to interpret the results of equivalence analyses and discuss a few related methodological issues. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.