ACHIEVING CUSTOMER LOYALTY THROUGH A HOTEL BRAND DIFFERENTIATION
Understanding the hotel guests' needs and providing a hospitality service that delivers on their expectations is crucial for achieving guest satisfaction and - eventually - for creating customer loyalty. This is why the hotel operators, along with their constant efforts to deliver consistent services by unifying the operating standards and procedures, also try to know their guests better, so that they can align their services with the guest's preferences and deliver more personalized experience. This is why the major hotel operators develop portfolios of various hotel brands, positioning them to different market segments and thus targeting travelers with specific needs. However, in the modern world the guest expectations are not just of a nice experience. Nowadays the hotel guests are more and more interested in the way the hotel operators do their business. They follow their words and actions and expect that the brand shares (or at least aligns with) the client's personal values. But these expectations also present an opportunity for the hoteliers to establish a long-lasting, authentic relationships with the client. Also, by aligning their behavior and brand purposes with the guest expectations, the hoteliers are now able to build a collective sense of brand belonging with their clients.