Predictors of guest retention: Investigating the role of hotel’s corporate social responsibility activities and brand image - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 142

of community involvement in quality of life on
guest retention had a decreasing

image as the intervening variable from CSR activi-
ties predictor and guest retention. By demonstrat-
ing the existence of significant direct and indirect
effects of CSR activities, hotel brand image and
guest retention, this study provides clear evidence
that CSR activities are important in fostering
guest retention in the hotel industry. Practically,
the results from this study will help hotel manag-
ers and operators to plan and implement strategies
pertaining to CSR activities. This study suggests
that hotel operators should actively involve and
organize community projects in order to improve
the local community quality of life. Activities such
as sponsoring public community facilities and
events, hiring more local people to work, and buy-
ing products from local community would help to
create a strong positive image about the hotel and
subsequently could influence guest to spread posi-
tive word of mouth about the hotel.

β -value ( β = 0.35,

p .01) in the presence of hotel brand image, also

implying partial mediation. The effect of involve-
ment in community project became insignificant
(

<

.05) in the presence of hotel brand
image, thus, full mediation occurred.

β = .02, p >

5 DISCUSSIONS

The objective of this study is to determine whether
CSR activities and hotel brand image have positive
and significant influence on guest retention. Results
of this study indicated that CSR activities pertain-
ing to environmental practices, sustainable devel-
opment, involvement in community projects and
community involvement in quality of life have sig-
nificant and positive influence on hotel brand image
and guest retention. Hotel brand image was also
found to be a significant mediator on the relation-
ship between CSR activities and guest retention.
Findings from this study concluded that guest
who has higher perception of the hotel involve-
ment in improving local quality of life will express
higher intentions to return. Specifically, if the hotel
were perceived to have employed local workforce
and bought products made by the local people,
they would expressed higher intentions to return.
These findings were in line with Moir (2010)
who found that hotel involvements in improving
local quality of life have significant influenced on
guest retention. Further, this study corroborated
Scofidio (2007) whereby community projects such
as sponsoring local events, donating for local pro-
grams, and volunteering in local activities were
significantly influenced guest intentions to return.
Respondents in this study also expressed positive
brand image and higher intentions to comeback
when they believed the hotel have implemented
friendly environmental practices such as having
water saving devices in bathroom, using recycle
packaging for room amenities and using environ-
mental friendly products. Similarly, if the guests
perceived that the hotel shows concerns toward
conserving the environment through saving the
energy, uses pleasant environmental signage in
every room, and uses environmental friendly prod-
ucts, they will formed a high positive perception
toward the hotel and influence them to spread a
positive word of mouth about the hotel. This con-
sequently increase their willingness to return again.
These findings were similar with previous research-
ers (Jones et al., 2006; Lee & Park, 2009).
On theoretical implications this study con-
firmed the linkage between CSR activities, hotel
brand image and guest retention. This study also
gave evidence to the importance of hotel brand

6 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

The CSR activities investigated in this study were
limited in scope. Only CSR activities pertaining
to environment and community were examined.
Future researchers may need to widen the scope of
investigations (for example, workplace and market-
place). Additionally, this study was limited to guest
who had experienced staying at five-star hotels.
Future researchers may want to include guest from
three- or four-star hotels from other locality.

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