Brand Brings to a Hotel Property

Few dispute the value that a brand brings to a hotel

property, but questions remain regarding exactly how

the brand creates guest loyalty and how it creates

value. Over the past twenty-five years, a brand flag

has become an essential element of arranging a hotel

development deal. Because of this, researchers have

examined how brands influence top- and bottom-line

revenues and overall asset value. Moreover, the effect

of the brand on customer satisfaction seems to be

affected by the brand's franchising strategy.

Keywords: brand management; customer satisfaction;

hotel asset value; franchising

In the past twenty-five years, the hotel industry has

firmly embraced and accepted the value of branding

as an essential component of its marketing

strategy (Dev et al. 2009), especially given extensive

hotel brand segmentation. Beginning with Quality International

(now Choice Hotels International) in 1981,

most lodging companies have developed multiple

brands to serve multiple market segments (Jiang, Dev,

and Rao 2002). Beside Choice, companies that offer

numerous product tiers include Starwood, Marriott,

Hilton, and Accor. This strategy seems to be an accepted

aspect of hotel operation.

This segmentation strategy is based on the idea

that a brand name is part of the process of giving tangibility

to what is essentially intangible, providing a

"shorthand" method of establishing a particular property's

quality by giving the customer important information

about its product and service, sight unseen

(Brucks, Zeithaml, and Naylor 2000). In this regard, the

brand's value is based on potential guests' awareness of

the brand, their perception of its quality, and overall

customer satisfaction (O'Neill and