A Systematic Literature Review on Guest Loyalty in the Hospitality Industry

Abstract

Customer loyalty is one of the bedrocks of success in hospitality industry and has serious consequences on future repeat business, profitability, and sustainable competitive advantage. This paper is an attempt to conduct a systematic literature review on guest loyalty at hospitality settings and synthesize the main determinants, conceptual frameworks, and research gaps. The systematic literature review-based approach was used, with 78 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2024. Types of databases used were Scopus, web of science and Google scholar which were searched with the focus keywords. The relevant studies were screened, and the results traversed in a thematic manner and synthesized. The review ascertains that the key antecedents of guest loyalty are service quality, customer satisfaction, trust, and emotional attachment. The new literature is increasingly raising the position of the factor of technology and its curious counter list personalization, along with corporate social responsibility programs, on the determination of the appearance of loyal behavior. There are still couple of gaps that are empirical in nature; few studies about cross-cultural formation of loyalty and impact of high-tech digital loyalty programs. The paper gives a synopsis of the disparate literature that has been done on the topic of loyalty, especially on the topic of the hospitality industry and the paper would give an up-to-date framework that may be used to carry the future research and practice by managers as well.

      Keywords: guest loyalty, hospitality, service quality, customer satisfaction, relationship marketing, systematic literature review