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Introduction
Companies use brands to create and express their identities (Fugate and Phillips, 2010). In addition, in the tourism industry, many countries have developed integrated resorts which refer to the facilities include casinos, hotels, restaurants, convention centers and theme parks (Ahn and Back, 2018). A number of international and domestic integrated resorts attempt to capture the positive response of customers toward the brands. Consequently, competition among integrated resort service providers has been increasing, leading to the need to consider brand perspective. In the tourism and hospitality industry, brand perspective integrates a broad range of marketing strategies with the process of creating and delivering brand value (Konecnik and Gartner, 2007; Pike, 2005). Thus, brand perspective is useful because it provides the opportunity to examine how integrated resort companies develop marketing and promotion programs to enhance emotional bonds with customers.
In brand management literature, brand attachment is considered as an essential element of brand equity because it affects the behavior and lifetime value of customers and the brand profitability (Whan Park et al., 2010). Brand researchers have developed conceptualizations and mechanisms on how customer attachment toward the brand is formulated (Park et al., 2006; Thomson, 2006). As the antecedents of brand attachment, Thomson (2006) suggests that when customers’ basic needs are fulfilled (e.g. autonomy, competence and relatedness), they are likely to have a high level of attachment toward the brand. Furthermore, the perceived fit is another important factor in relation to positive value for customers and reduces negative outcomes (DelVecchio and Smith, 2005). The enhanced fit and compatibility between customers and brands provide major opportunities to create value in the exchange process. Researchers have found that customers’ perception of fit influences their attitude and behavior when they evaluate the product or service (Buil et al., 2009; Bridges et al., 2000; Jeong and Jang, 2018). DelVecchio and Smith (2005) also argued that perceived fit is critical because it is likely to enhance the positive value for the customers and reduce the negative results from the purchase of a co-branded product or service.
The role of brand attachment and compatibility on brand performance has been studied during the past several years. However, two major problems associated with brand management in the integrated resort setting are...