Brand Image in the Hotel Industry

Strong brand image is an invaluable asset and organizations are giving continuous endeavor to build strong image for their goods and services. Likewise, marketing researchers are focusing on researches to find out ways to enhance brand image. In this study, Aakers Customer-Based Brand Equity Framework-1996, Kellers Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid-2003 and Bakers Corporate Social Responsibility Model-2001 have been taken into consideration for identifying the pertinent factors relating to brand image of hotel brands. Subsequently a number of variables have been extracted through extensive literature review to investigate their influence on building brand image for branded hotels in the context of Bangladesh. The variables include brand awareness, brand association, brand superiority, brand affection, brand resonance and corporate social responsibility which are deemed to have a direct influence on brand image while tourism management and advertisement have been used as the moderators in the relationship between these six IVs and brand image. Data were collected from the customers of some selected 4 star and 5 star hotels in Bangladesh using multi-stage sampling procedure.