An investigation of customers’ satisfaction as a mediating effect between hotel customer loyalty antecedents and behavioral loyalty - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 100

ity need to be in a group of other attributes such
as perceived value and attachment before it had an
effect towards satisfaction and behavioural loyalty.
Therefore, the respondents who had familiarity
were less likely to have satisfaction relationship
(a

industry and ensure that their mission is an on-
going basis. A warm welcome, serving with car-
ing and responsive approach of the employee can
turn the ordinary service into an outstanding and
exceptional experience.
Therefore, it can be concluded that this study
really assist in determining the attributes that
trigger satisfied customer to be a loyal customer.
As a result, this study should be able to help the
hoteliers, as well as other service providers, who
sensed that it is necessary to find out the best ways
to retain the customer as this kind of customer
will help them to bring the luxurious path to their
business.

.005) while holding constant for familiarity,
the high level of satisfaction indicate positivity of
behavioural loyalty (b

=

0.489). Apparently, the
direct effect c' (0.102) was significant.

=

5 CONCLUSION

The finding proves that satisfaction does mediate
between customer loyalty attributes and behavioral
loyalty. The result was supported by early research
done by Spiteri and Dion (2004) as the authors
conducted the study confined to veterinarians. The
finding had recognized from the attributes of cus-
tomer loyalty, the customer will ensure that they
were satisfied with the service offered by the hotel
before turn them as a loyal customer and have a
behavior loyalty towards the particular hotel.
In a similar vein, the result provides accept-
able evidence that satisfaction also does mediate
between perceived value and attachment towards
behavioral loyalty. It was similar with Ariff, Fen
and Ismail (2012) as finding validated the configu-
ration of customers' perceived value, satisfaction
and loyalty. Satisfaction also had a significance
effect towards attachment and behavioral loyalty
and the result supports Lee, Kyle and Scott (2012)
stated their findings as satisfied visitors at a festival
will develop an affecting attachment towards the
festival host destination and eventually they will
become loyal to that destination.
Nonetheless, the result from the bootstrap anal-
ysis showed that satisfaction does not mediate the
effect of customer's familiarity on behavioural loy-
alty. The result was opposed with the study done
Casaló, Flavian and Guinalíu (2008) as the authors
found out as customer familiarity increases it will
influence their loyalty and the loyalty also acquire
from the effect on satisfaction.
Hoteliers must keep in their minds that they can-
not treat customer the same and anticipate receiv-
ing the same evaluation of satisfaction from the
as different customer have their own expectation
and level of satisfaction. Thus, the hoteliers need
to understand the disparity between their custom-
ers and produce the best ways to create satisfaction
among the customer.
Retaining customer is essential for the future in
this industry and also within this globally competi-
tive market as hotel industry have to hunt for way
to communicate their exclusivity for their customer
and gain loyalty from them. The management also
needs to focus for their aim for prosperity in this

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research is funded by Universiti Teknologi
MARA, under the Research Acculturation Grant
Scheme (RAGS) (600-RMI/RAGS 5/3 (146/2012).

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