Rethinking Sustainability Hotel Branding: The Pathways from Hotel Services to Brand Engagement

Abstract

Brand experience has received attention from scholars and researchers, especially in experiential marketing and management. Due to the high market competition and sustainability branding trends, hotel brands need to improve and enhance their hotel services to meet customers’ expectations and retain their engagement and loyalty to the brand. This study explores the relationships between hotel services (servicescape and employee service), brand experience (internal and behavioral responses), brand engagement, and brand loyalty. Web-based and paper-based surveys were used to collect data from the customers who have experienced hotel services in Vietnam. A total of 390 responses were used and analyzed by AMOS. The results show that there are positive relationships between hotel services, internal responses, and brand engagement. In addition, the moderating effects of brand loyalty on the relationship between brand experience and brand engagement were found. Although prior studies have been conducted in the servicescape and employee service fields, there remains less empirical research addressing the relationships between hotel services and brand experience. In addition, the examination of brand loyalty playing a moderator in the relationship between brand experience and brand engagement has not been adequately explored, so this study contributes to the brand loyalty literature.

1. Introduction

The hotel industry has become increasingly competitive as it reaches life-cycle maturity and the world economy stumbles. Sustainability has emerged as one of the dominant trends in the hotel industry. Hotels are employing sustainable ways of brand building to develop their competitive advantages [1]. Brand plays an essential part in business success [2,3]. To compete in the highly competitive market, it is significant for firms to build a strong brand in customers’ minds by identifying and differentiating their products and services from other rivals [4]. Sustainability initiatives help in brand building for hotel brands. A well-known brand can offer sustainable competitive advantages and increase shareholder value and the company’s overall profitability [5,6]. Thus, customers tend to choose a famous brand when they believe it offers higher and better service quality [7,8]. Famous sustainability brands, such as Starbucks, Disney, and Singapore Airlines and hotel brands, such as Hilton, Sheraton, and Nikko, offer excellent brand experiences to engage customers in multisensory and hedonic ways [9]. The above brands exemplify what many world-class businesses are doing to continually enhance sustainability services into superior brand experiences to ensure high customer engagement.

Customer engagement has gained significant attention, especially where its relationship targets the firm, customers, and employees [10,11,12]. Prior studies have examined the correlation between customer engagement and the brand—e.g., [13,14]. Customers would be passionate and involved with the brand when engagement is a result of delivering meaningful messages [15]. Still, prior studies have indicated that engaging customers with a brand are a dynamic instrument in building stronger consumer–brand connections [16,17,18] and a key measure for assessing brand performance [19]. The higher the level of customer–brand engagement, the better the firm performance outcomes, such as superior profitability and brand referrals [20,21,22]. Regardless of the latest academic interest in customer engagement, this field of inquiry remains under-researched. Thus, it becomes important that a sound understanding of customer engagement concerning brand experience is obtained. However, a limited number of studies have been witnessed between brand experience and brand engagement, which makes it essential to examine the relationship between these two factors.

Brand experience has received attention in experiential marketing and management fields—e.g., [23,24,25]. Experiences occur when consumers interact with the service, from searching and purchasing to consuming stages [26,27,28]. Hence, the power level of brand experience depends on the intensity of stimuli and how it stimulates the customer’s mind [29]. The hotel industry is a sensitive industry in terms of service quality and customer satisfaction. Hotels provide quality service delivery that enhances customer satisfaction, and thereby leads to positive behavioral intentions. Nonetheless, for the survival of the hotel organizations, it is necessary to meet the needs and requirements of the hotel customers and provide sustainable services in a customized manner [30]. Research on the relationship between sustainable hotel services and brand experience can be of great interest. Yet, it is quite difficult for customers to evaluate the services because of their non-physical nature [31]. There are three main factors as salient attributes influencing consumers’ decisions, namely, employee behavior, location, and physical environment [32,33,34]. Customers experienced service quality not shown by the interaction between customers and the firms, but delivered by their impressions of the physical environment; therefore, servicescape plays a crucial role in the service setting [35,36].

In addition, creating unforgettable customer experiences and maintaining customer-to-revisit intention are important strategies for hotel services. Many top international chains, such as Marriott International, InterContinental Hotels Group, and Accor Hotels, keep up with this demand [37]. Employee performances may cause emotional experiences, which affect customer satisfaction and loyalty levels [38]. Employee services also play a crucial role in the service setting. Servicescape and employee services are considered effective components for making experience evaluations of the customer easier with their physical attributes [39,40]. The physical environment refers to a servicescape that can help managers create an attractive image and provide better services [41], while employee service plays an active role in creating a business image and delivering it to the customer [42,43]. This business image has an influence on customers’ emotional and effective responses (e.g., brand experiences), which leads to cognitive and affective responses (e.g., brand engagement), and then their behavioral responses [44]. Although prior studies have been conducted in the servicescape and employee service fields [45,46,47,48], there remains less empirical research addressing the relationships between servicescape, employee service, and brand experience—e.g., [49,50,51]. Furthermore, the research streams on the effects of environmental and personnel cues on customer responses are mostly focused on retail stores, such as supermarkets and convenience stores [52,53,54,55]. Therefore, subsequent work attests to the important roles of servicescape, employee service, and brand experience within the hotel industry context and highlights the need to focus on their relationships in this area.

Further, prior studies have indicated that brand experience has a direct effect on brand engagement. However, the key question is, whether brand experience automatically translates into a brand engagement. Therefore, it is imperative to identify this relationship for further examination. We propose that loyal customers be considered important assets to the hotel organization. A customer can be turned into a loyal customer by influencing the behavioral pattern of the hotel guest. Brand loyalty describes the level of customer–brand relationship, which depicts a synchronization between the brand and its customers, and which generates peculiar behavioral outcomes, such as customers actively seeking means to share their brand experiences with others [56]. Accordingly, firms are increasingly concerned about their brands because of changing consumer behavior in branding [57]. They modify their business operations to achieve long-term sustainable growth by enhancing consumer brand loyalty [58]. Nonetheless, the examination of brand loyalty as a moderator in the relationship between brand experience and brand engagement has not been adequately explored, so this study is of great significance and contributes to the brand loyalty literature.

However, simple brand experience, brand engagement, and brand loyalty do not necessarily create sustainable branding, but it is a necessary ingredient in hotel service branding development. The sustainability pathways give branding a central role in rethinking hotel brand management. It is not just hotel services or brand loyalty to facilitate (or enhance) other drivers of change and it is a starting point for a change of philosophy in the sustainability of hotel service branding. Thus, with these research gaps, the scope of the study is identified as investigating the pathways from hotel services (i.e., servicescape and employee service) to brand engagement concerning the sustainability of hotel service branding.

2. Review of the Literature and Hypothesis Development

2.1. Servicescape

The concept of the servicescape provides meaningful insight into the development of a high-quality service environment and an effective sustainability marketing strategy [59] for successful hotel services. The servicescape is considered as a pack of services and classified into three components, namely, ambient conditions, spatial/function, and signs, symbols, and artifacts [35]. The physical environment refers to servicescapes that have been classified differently based on the different contexts, such as a restaurant [60], leisure services [36], and shopping centers [61]. Moreover, it is essential to consider elements of servicescapes according to their different context [40,49]. In this study, we considered ambiance, layout, décor, and signs as elements of sustainable servicescapes in the hotel context, which is explained as the substantive performance of servicescapes [62,63]. Researchers employed a sustainable servicescape to analyze and comprehend the positive feelings of consumers towards the layout and constructed environment [63].

According to Nguyen [43], ambient conditions refer to the service environment that might affect customers’ perceptions, such as sensitive elements that include temperature, color, lights, noise, music, scent, and so on [35]. Spatial layout is the physical and spatial environment where the service occurs including layout, equipment, furnishings, and so on [35]. Signs are related to the explanatory directives as to the name of the hotel brand or pointing to a specific location in the hotel (e.g., restaurants and gym), also as informative elements [35,49], which contribute to creating an appropriate atmosphere and direct customers to service experiences during their service encounter [43]. Décor is related to the colors of floors, walls, and the quality of other materials [60]. Besides providing valuable tangible brand signs before purchase, the servicescape is also evaluated and experienced during consumption [38].

2.2. Brand Experience

Brand experience is defined as internal consumer and behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli, which are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications, and environment [64]. The internal consumer responses are suggested to consist of sensations, feelings, and cognition. The sensations mean “a strong visual impression on the customer” [29]; for instance, encountering a luxury hotel with a good visual environment and harmonious music, good-looking and welcoming receptionists, and tasting delicious foods can encourage customer sensory experience. Feelings or affective experience is triggered by individual emotion and sentiments created by the brand [65]. For instance, customer affective experience can be created when a hotel provides events or shows, such as live music performances, Christmas parties, and other services and facilities, such as massage, babysitter, spa, and gym to entertain and bring joy, and fun to its customer. In the meantime, cognition or intellectual experience refers to the ability of a brand to make a customer think or feel curious; for instance, the hotel can use promotional activities, such as offering designed facilities through meetings, wedding conventions, information kiosks, and bookstores, to stimulate customer’s attention and curiosity. The behavioral responses refer to the physical actions and behavior that happen when customers use the brand, which includes bodily experiences, lifestyles, and interactions with the brands [65]. A hotel, especially the four- to five-star hotel usually provides leisure facilities, such as a swimming pool, golf course, spa, and gym area; those activities can create a customer behavioral experience.

Aaker [66] suggested that the intangible aspect of branding is a powerful competitive tool for business sustainability. Customer experience with the hotel brand is crucial to determine whether they will return for a future visit. A well-crafted servicescape can provide physical and functional benefits for the customer, which led to customer experience [67,68]. Previous studies pointed out that environmental dimensions have an emotional effect on individuals [49,51,69]. A servicescape is considered flexible and associated with feeling or dominance, which are both dimensions of emotional responses for the individual [44]. When customers go through a servicescape, they can sense and visualize environmental cues to create a mental image in their minds, which creates cognitive responses [70,71]. A holistic mental image of the customer was formed based on elements in the servicescape, and this image influences emotional or affective responses, which leads to the cognitive and affective response, then the customers respond behaviorally [44]. For example, hotel customers are increasingly demanding sustainably-designed hotels [72]. For sustainable action that a firm engages in, different beliefs about the action might result in different consumer responses [73]. Based on this, this study presents the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

Servicescape has a positive influence on internal responses.

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

Servicescape has a positive influence on behavioral responses.

2.3. Employee Service

The service provided and how the service is provided through the staff is considered employee service [39]. Berry [2] argued that employee service plays a crucial role in the success of the service offering process. Employee service refers to the behaviors or performances of the employees in the delivery of the service [74]. On the other hand, it can be conceptualized as the functional and emotional benefits provided to customers through interactions with the employees [75]. The evaluation of customer experience is affected by the customer perceptions of employee service [76,77]. Chang and Horng [75] proposed that the interaction between customers and employees creates the service experience; furthermore, employee performance may cause emotional experiences, which affect customer satisfaction and loyalty levels [38]. Wilburn [50] and Vance [78] suggested that customer service is the foundation for the development of a high level of customer experience. Furthermore, the interaction between employees and customers could shape the customer experience of the service and the brand [79]. In the hotel industry, employee hospitality is suggested to make customers have emotional responses when they perceive the benefit “during the service encounter and the guest-host interaction” [80]. The more employee service meets customer perception, the more positive emotional responses customers have [80]. Accordingly, we proposed that:

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Employee service has a positive influence on internal responses.

Hypothesis 4 (H4).

Employee service has a positive influence on behavioral responses.

2.4. Brand Engagement

Customer engagement is conceptualized as a higher-order construct containing five dimensions, namely, absorption, enthusiasm, identification, attention, and interaction between hotel and customers [14]. This concept reflects two main dimensions of customer engagement, which are psychological [81,82,83] and behavioral components [17,18,19]. In this study, we focused on the definition of brand engagement, which combines both perspectives as “a consumer’s positively valenced brand-related cognitive, emotional and behavioral activity during or related to focal consumer/brand interactions” [84]. Based on Hollebeek et al. [84], there are three dimensions of brand engagement, namely, cognitive, affection, and activation. Therein, cognitive is defined as “a consumer’s level of brand-related thought processing and elaboration in a particular consumer/brand interaction.” Meanwhile, affection is “a consumer’s degree of positive brand-related effect in a particular consumer/brand interaction,” and activation is defined as “a consumer’s level of energy, effort and time spent on a brand in a particular consumer/brand interaction”.

Previous studies indicated that customer engagement was influenced by customer experience; on the other hand, brand experience is considered the antecedent of brand engagement [22,85]. Brodie et al. [86] posited that customer engagement is formed based on a customer’s internal (including sensory, affective, and intellectual) experience and behavioral responses. In the hotel industry, when customers are impressed by a hotel’s visual or atmosphere, which stimulates sensory experience, they are likely to pay attention to brand-related information, which makes them feel excited and happy, and then they are willing to participate in brand-related activities, such as having a meal in the hotel restaurant. Customers tend to positively engage with a hotel brand when they feel relaxed and satisfied with the services the hotel offers [85]. When customers experience positive emotions, such as pleasure, enjoyment, and delight, during their time staying in the hotel, these elements can increase the bonding between the customer and the brand, and also motivate them to take part in other hotel-related activities. Likewise, customer behavioral responses are related to physical activities, which refer to “physical engagements with the brand and action-oriented characteristics of the brand” [85]. Based on the above discussion, we proposed that:

Hypothesis 5 (H5).

Brand engagement is positively affected by internal responses.

Hypothesis 6 (H6).

Brand engagement is positively affected by behavioral responses.

2.5. Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty refers to a biased behavioral purchase response that is informed by a psychological process [87]. When customers are satisfied with the products or services of a brand, they tend to continuously repurchase and experience that brand [88]. Brand loyalty is one of the components of brand equity [89]. Studies indicate that the interaction between consumer and brand induces sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses, which would create the brand experience that provides a holistic evaluation of a brand [64,90]. Unique and memorable brand experiences can be created by increasing the level of consumer brand engagement [91]. Moreover, the brand experience, brand satisfaction, brand loyalty, commitment, trust, and customer value are regarded as the potential consequences of customer engagement [16].

Studies conceptualize the links between highly connected and passionate customer effectiveness and brand loyalty [17,92]. When customers show a more active brand voice, providing feedback to the brand and promoting the brand to others, scholars believe that shown increasing identification with brand loyalty is a consequence of customer brand engagement [19,20,92]. Brakus et al. [64] identified that customers make repeat visits when they receive unique and memorable brand experiences, which are more likely to develop brand loyalty. In the context of the retail industry, brand loyalty is known as a primary consequence of brand experience [93]. Hence, creating and managing unique brand experiences are crucial to building brand loyalty [94]. We believe that the higher the level of loyalty customers show, the more engaged they will feel with the brand after experiencing the hotel services. So, we came up with the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 7 (H7).

Brand loyalty has a moderating effect between internal responses and brand engagement.

Hypothesis 8 (H8).

Brand loyalty has a moderating effect between behavioral responses and brand engagement.

To explore the impacts of hotel services on firms’ brand experience when customers experience hotel services, which, in turn, affects their brand engagement, this study also explores the moderating effects of brand loyalty on brand engagement in the relationships between internal responses, behavioral responses, and brand engagement. A research model is proposed, as shown in Figure 1.

3. Materials and Methodology

3.1. Sampling

Owing to human tourism and abundant natural resources, Vietnam is known as an attractive tourist destination. Vietnam’s increasing popularity influences the rapid development of its hospitality and tourism industry. In 2019, Vietnam attracted over 18 million international and 85 million domestic tourists [95]. Vietnam is the 4th fastest growing tourist destination in the world and the fastest in Asia with a 29.1% growth in international arrivals [96]. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism [97], total revenue from international and domestic tourists was valued at VND 755 trillion (USD 32.6 billion) in 2019, which played an important contribution to the GDP, accounting for 9.2%. In 2022, Vietnam’s government considers tourism as one of the key economic sectors with an impressive growth of a CAGR of 14.43% over five years from 2022 to 2026 [98]. Thus, in response to such growth, there has been a growth in the Vietnamese hospitality and tourism services, especially hotels [99]. The four- to five-star hotels have recorded a 66% growth in terms of the number of rooms in 2016 [100]. In total room revenue, the high-end and luxury segment grew at a CAGR of 19%, reaching EUR 1.08 billion in 2016 [101]. With many high-end projects in the pipeline, Vietnam’s hotel industry is expected to continue thriving.

3.2. Data Collection

This study used web-based and paper-based questionnaires that were distributed simultaneously to collect data more conveniently and extensively. The questionnaire was designed in English; the final version was translated into Vietnamese by a bilingual native Vietnamese speaker and then translated back into English to ensure validity. Previous studies have mentioned that the significant impact of Facebook on hotels can be emotional and informative appeal [102]. Customers visit a hotel’s Facebook page to search for information about rooms and to know the experiences of other customers, which determines the intention of booking a hotel. Thus, the web-based questionnaires were developed in Google Form, where participants were able to respond to the survey on Facebook. While the paper-based questionnaires were answered by consumers. Eligible respondents are required to have experienced hotel services of four- to five-star hotels in Vietnam in a recent year; they also received USD 3 for their participation. A total of 416 responses were collected. After the assessment, 390 responses were analyzed while 26 responses were found to be invalid because of missing data.

Table 1. Sample demographics.

Item	Category	Frequency	Rate (%)
Gender	Female	240	61.5
	Male	150	38.5
Age	Under 25	55	14.1
	25–45	243	62.3
	Above 45	92	23.6
Annual household income	Under USD 1000	55	14.1
	USD 1000–5000	60	15.4
	USD 5001–10,000	112	28.7
	USD 10,001–50,000	130	33.3
	Above USD 50,000	33	8.5
Travel frequency	Less than 3 times	181	46.4
	3–5 times	157	40.3
	More than 5 times	52	13.3
Per night in hotel budget	Under USD 100	164	42.1
	USD 100–200	166	42.6
	Above USD 200	60	15.4
Hotel brand type	Local brand	262	67.2
	Foreign brand	128	32.8
Hotel rating	Four-star hotel	139	35.6
	Five-star hotel	251	64.4
Travel purpose	Business trip	91	23.3
	Leisure trip	299	76.7

shows the sample demographics. Among 390 responses, 240 (61.5%) were female and 150 (38.5%) were male. The largest age groups were between 25 and 45 years old (62.3%). The results indicate that 33.3% (130) of respondents have an annual household income of USD 10,000–50,000, followed by 112 respondents who earn USD 5001–10,000 (28.7%) and USD 1000–5000 (15.4%). Most of the respondents travel less than 3 times per year (46.4%) and usually spend USD 100–200 (42.6%) per night when traveling. The behavioral profile indicates that most respondents stayed in the local brand hotel in a recent year, and more than two-thirds traveled mainly for leisure and stayed in five-star hotels.

3.3. Measures

All the measurement items were adapted from prior studies and were evaluated by using a five-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree = 1” to “strongly agree = 5” (see the Appendix A). Servicescape and employee service adopted the scale of Grace and O’Cass [39]. The brand experience was adopted from Brakus et al. [64], with nine items to examine internal responses and three items for behavioral responses. Brand engagement includes three sub-variables, namely, cognition, affection, and activation. These three sub-variables were adapted from Hollebeek et al. [84]. Brand loyalty was adopted from De Vries and Carlson [103]. All the items were modified to fit into the context of the hotel industry.

3.4. Common Method Bias

Harman’s one-factor test was used to examine potential common method bias (CMB) [104]. Eight factors with eigenvalues of greater than one accounted for 76.4% of the total variance, and the first factor accounted for 18.0% of the variance. Since a single factor did not emerge and one general factor did not account for most of the variance, CMB was not likely a serious problem in this study [105]. In addition, based on Karimi et al. [106], the significant moderation effects found in this study does not permit causality to be inferred from the results. These figures suggest that our results are not due to CMB.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Measurement Properties

IBM SPSS 26 and AMOS 26 were applied to conduct the analyses and assess the quality of the measurement model. This study examined the reliability and validity of constructs by calculating the composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE), and maximum shared variance (MSV). The adequate CR, which is much like Cronbach’s Alpha (α) but gives a more robust measure of the reliability of scales [107], should be greater than 0.70 [108]. Moreover, the desirable AVE values should be greater than 0.50 [109] and greater than the MSV between other constructs [110]. In addition, discriminant validity was tested by comparing the square root of AVE for each construct with the correlations between constructs.

Table 2. Measurement properties.

Variables	α	CR	AVE	MSV	IR	SS	ES	BE	BR
IR	0.905	0.894	0.738	0.475	0.859
SS	0.880	0.874	0.635	0.575	0.689 **	0.797
ES	0.872	0.869	0.688	0.575	0.620 **	0.758 **	0.830
BE	0.952	0.925	0.757	0.198	0.445 **	0.408 **	0.409 **	0.870
BR	0.728	0.722	0.566	0.263	0.513 **	0.203 **	0.304 **	0.369 **	0.752

Notes: (1) ** p < 0.01; (2) CR = composite reliability, AVE = average variance extracted, MSV = maximum shared variance, IR = internal responses, SS = servicescape, ES = employee service, BE = brand engagement, BR = behavioral responses; (3). The square root of AVE is shown on diagonal in bold faces.

indicated the Cronbach’s alpha, CR, and AVE values of all constructs were well above the cutoff value, hence both conditions for establishing the convergent validity and discriminant validity were well satisfied.

We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the construct validation for the measurement model. Additionally, conducting the CFA gives a more robust measure of tests of dimensionality of constructs, and rectifies a measurement model before conducting the structural equation modeling (SEM) method in the next step [111,112]. This technique estimates a population covariance matrix based on the proposed model and compares it with the observed covariance matrix [113]. The CFA results model that all of the items reached the standard threshold and demonstrated a satisfactory model fit (the ratio of chi-square/degrees of freedom = 2.38, GFI = 0.93, AGFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, and SRMR = 0.04).

4.2. Results for the Direct Effects

To test the hypotheses and evaluate the model, the SEM was applied. The results showed all model fit values satisfied the threshold values (the ratio of chi-square/degrees of freedom = 3.013, GFI = 0.91, AGFI = 0.88, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.07, and SRMR = 0.07). The path coefficient for servicescape to internal responses is significant (β = 0.490, t = 6.218, p < 0.001), supporting Hypothesis 1. A well-designed servicescape can lead to a brand experience, then they are more likely to show more emotion and feelings for the hotel brand. However, the path from servicescape to behavioral responses (β = −0.01, t = −0.163, p = 0.870) was not significant; Hypothesis 2 is not supported. There are two possible explanations for this result. (1) the correlation matrix (Table 2) showed a significant relationship between servicescape and behavioral responses (r = 0.20, p < 0.01); single regression analysis showed that servicescape (β = 0.14, p < 0.01) had a significant positive effect on behavioral responses. Thus, we suspect that the effect of servicescape on internal responses could weaken the effect of the servicescape on behavioral responses; (2) other factors such as personal characteristics and different cultural perspectives may also undermine this relationship [114]. Nevertheless, the importance of servicescape cannot be ignored, and hotel service providers can discover, understand, and satisfy customers’ practical needs from the servicescape to create behavioral responses.

Employee service is significantly and positively related to internal responses (β = 0.269, t = 3.466, p < 0.001) and behavioral responses (β = 0.347, t = 3.000, p < 0.01), supporting Hypothesis 3 and 4. The results find that employee service has a positive effect on brand experience in the Vietnam hotel industry. Therefore, customers will feel welcomed and happy when customers are impressed by employee professionalism and hospitableness, and these emotions and sentiments will lead to an effective brand experience. Likewise, when customers perceive benefits and values more than their expectations during interactions with hotel staff, they tend to respond by physical actions and behavior, because that value is always co-created through the interaction between the firm and the customer [115].

The results also showed that the internal responses (β = 0.374, t = 7.168, p < 0.001) and behavioral responses (β = 0.216, t = 3.685, p < 0.001) led to brand engagement; Hypotheses 5 and 6 are supported. Customer engagement was formed based on customer experience [116]. Therefore, when customers encounter positive hotel experiences, they tend to show more intense actions, thoughts, and affection for that hotel brand. Regarding the R2 value, servicescape and employee service explained 33% of internal responses and 25% of behavioral responses; additionally, internal responses and behavioral responses explained 37% of brand engagement. Both values exceed the cutoff values of 0.1 and 0.3, indicating small and medium effect sizes, respectively [117].

4.3. The Moderating Effects of Brand Loyalty

This study used a latent moderated effect model [118] to assess the moderating effects of brand loyalty. The interaction terms (i.e., brand loyalty × internal responses, brand loyalty × behavioral responses) are the products of independent variables and the moderator variables, and the means of these results were tested by AMOS 26. The interaction term of brand loyalty × internal responses has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between internal responses and brand engagement (β = 0.397, t = 5.882, p < 0.001), supporting Hypothesis 7. The interaction term of brand loyalty × behavioral responses also has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between behavioral responses and brand engagement (β = 0.094, t = 2.931, p < 0.01); thus, supporting Hypothesis 8. When the level of internal responses and loyalty are both high, the level of customer engagement with the brand is increased. This indicates that brand loyalty has a moderating effect on the relationship between customer internal responses and brand engagement. Meanwhile, when the level of behavioral responses and loyalty are both high, the level of customer engagement with the brand is also increased. The results implied that when the level of behavioral responses and loyalty are both high, the higher the level of engagement customers may have toward the brand.

Table 3. The results for moderating effects.

Variables	Hypotheses	BE
		Model 1	Model 2	Results
Independent variables
IR	-	0.34 ***	0.31 ***	-
BR	-	0.21 ***	0.19 ***	-
Moderate variables
IR × BL	H7	-	0.39 ***	Supported
BR × BL	H8	-	0.09 **	Supported
Control variable
BL	-	-	0.30 ***	-

Notes: (1) ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001; (2) IR = internal responses, BR = behavioral responses, BL = brand loyalty, BE = brand engagement; (3) “-“ for not applicable

summarized the results of the moderating effects of brand loyalty.

4.4. Robustness Check

Our model posits that brand loyalty moderates the effects of internal responses and behavioral responses on brand engagement. To verify this claim, we examined the robustness of the preceding results with Preacher and Hayes’s [119] approach using the PROCESS tool [120]. We tested the hypothesis with moderation proposed by Preacher and Hayes [119] via the PROCESS tool using 5000 bootstrapped samples for the significance test. The result shows that the effects of internal responses and behavioral responses on brand engagement is moderated by brand loyalty, supporting H7 and H8. In sum, by using Preacher and Hayes’s approach, the hypothesized moderation relationships follow the same significance patterns as those of the SEM results.

5. Conclusions and Implications

Few studies have assessed the role of brand experience in building brand engagement, especially in the context of hotel brands. Responding to the calls of Lemon and Verhoef [121], this study aims to investigate how brand experience influences brand engagement, specifically for hotel brands. In this study, the brand experience was divided into two major dimensions: internal and behavioral responses. The results show that servicescape has a positive effect on internal responses (H1). There is no difference between servicescape and behavioral responses (H2). This finding is interesting and relevant because the influences of servicescape on behavioral responses have been clearly documented in the literature [122,123]. However, this result may have occurred because consumers of hedonic services (e.g., sports events, music festivals, resorts, theaters, and hotels) are generally seeking emotional rather than behavioral responses [124]. Although customers may view the hotel’s physical environment as impressive and interesting, it does not guarantee that they will respond behaviorally. Employee service is positively related to brand experience (i.e., internal and behavioral responses) (H3 and H4). Furthermore, the results indicate that brand experience significantly influences brand engagement (H5 and H6). This finding is consistent with that of Liang [125] and Obilo et al. [126]. Such consistent findings indicate that the higher the service quality is, the better the brand experience and the more active customers engage with the brand. Further, brand loyalty plays a moderator role between brand experience and brand engagement (H7 and H8).

5.1. Theoretical Implications

This study has four significant contributions to the hospitality and sustainability branding literature. First, this study integrates the antecedents (servicescape and employee service) and consequence (brand engagement) of the brand experience. Although previous studies have verified the significance of servicescape and employee service in retail or bank settings (e.g., [127,128,129,130,131]), few studies have assessed servicescape and employee service in the context of the hotel industry. By addressing this gap, this study allows for the empirical examination of brand-related dimensions in the Vietnam hotel industry.

Second, this study has contributed to the sustainability branding and marketing literature by proving that brand experience acts as an important precursor to customer brand engagement in the hotel domain. Thus, delivering internal and behavioral experiences are essential to enhance customer engagement with hotel brands. The experiential marketing approach, which focuses on producing and delivering enjoyable customer experiences, can be quite an innovative approach to consistently engage their consumers.

Third, this study extended the brand experience theory [9] by the addition of three dimensions of brand engagement (i.e., cognition, affection, and activation). This extension enabled researchers to investigate how cognition, affection, and activation aspects of brand engagement explain customers’ behaviors in the Vietnam hotel setting. In addition, prior studies have used Brakus et al.’s [64] brand experience model to examine hotel customers’ behaviors, but no research has been conducted adding brand engagement as a consequence. The perspective that the integration of brand experience in the hotel service processes is a key enabler through which brand engagement can be realized extends research on improving hotel consumers’ behaviors within the sustainability hotel branding environment.

Fourth, the results have observed that brand loyalty has a moderating effect on the relationship between brand experience (i.e., internal and behavioral responses) and brand engagement. To the best of our knowledge, prior studies on testing the moderating effect of brand loyalty on the relationships between internal response, behavioral response, and brand engagement has been scarce. Our findings have contributed to the understanding of internal response, behavioral response, brand engagement, and brand loyalty among Vietnam hospitality customers. Accordingly, the moderating role of brand loyalty in this study differs from contributions made by other studies.

5.2. Managerial Implications

The study has practical implications for the hotel industry. By developing the integrated model of brand experience, our study provides an understanding of the mechanism of internal and behavioral responses of customers for hotel companies. This study offers valuable insight and guidance to hotel brands as they simply provide effective sustainability in hotel service branding strategies to enhance customer experience and gain engagement with servicescape and employee factors.

First, servicescape is an important component of the service industry. Customers are stimulated by the natural servicescape of a range of amenities, which generates pleasure. This response is an important indication of a hotel’s sustainability [131]. Hotel practitioners could equip and decorate the physical natural environment with positive elements to bring a positive atmosphere and feelings not only for customers but also for the hotel staff based on the influence of environmental cues on individual behavior from a psychological view [132]. Hotel practitioners should emphasize the natural environmental layout and design details of the hotel as contributors to the hotel’s servicescape [133]. For example, hotel brands could change their decoration concepts based on the characteristics of the four seasons or use a specific theme and decorative natural items to make customers feel more engaged with the brand through the culture [134]. Hence, hotels can enhance the overall ambiance by including a natural theme in the architectural style and furniture layout, and by selecting relaxing music and scents. It is likely to enhance customers’ emotions and attitudes and induce their brand experiences [135].

Second, for employee service, hotel practitioners should frequently improve the quality of employee service by conducting monthly assessments and employee of the month to encourage and appreciate the outstanding individual. In addition, hotel practitioners can involve employees in service decision-making and support their ideas on how to provide unique brand experiences to enhance their independent perception [136]. Because of the importance of customer services, practitioners could provide certain decision-making authority, strengthen frontline employee service skills training, and actively share solutions to different types of service problems, so as to improve the customer service level of their employees and encourage them to provide various solutions while facing new service problems [137]. In particular, hotel practitioners should place special emphasis on personalization and caring service training. The personalized service creates a sustainable environment different from the usual environment of customers; thus, activating the brand experience. In doing so, hotel practitioners could meet their customer’s expectations to enhance the superior experiences of hotel services that are even beyond customers’ expectations through superior employee service.

Third, instead of just meeting the standards, hotel practitioners can positively improve and offer a better brand experience that might directly affect customers’ minds. Hotel practitioners should pay more attention to the customer’s feelings and emotions [138] by providing suitable entertainment options, enabling them, in the process, to escape from reality and placing in front of them aesthetic objects. That is, hotel practitioners could provide opportunities and space for customers to be exposed to nature within the hotel space by designing services around that experience. In addition, hotel practitioners should emphasize customers’ physical actions based on their sustainable lifestyle, which triggers their minds and stimulates their interests [139]. For example, hotel practitioners could design online and offline events, which, in turn, would inspire unforgettable experiences. It would encourage the customers to participate and provide valuable suggestions for conducting various other activities and events. These could be the key drivers for customers’ overall experience and effective engagement in the hotel service context [131].

We suggest that sustainability hotel branding needs to match their green marketing strategies to meet growing customers’ expectations; we argue that the ability of green perceptions to increase satisfaction will strongly depend on whether these can deliver customer experiential value. Hotel practitioners should increase their understanding of the difference in customer experiences (such as, internal and behavioral), to enhance brand advocacy, resulting in higher customer engagement with hotel services. This approach can also help to motivate employees, engage them with the hotel and boost them to deliver the hotel value to customers. These hotel service approaches help customer impressions last longer, which can ensure sustainable brand engagement.

Fourth, it has led to a situation where the long-term customer relationship is the means to ensure sustainability. Therefore, brand loyalty has emerged as an important area for marketers to ensure the long-term survival of the business organization [140]. The hotel practitioners have the responsibility of framing long-term strategies to promote brand loyalty among customers. Hotel brands should improve customer loyalty by focusing on creating emotional experiences and maintaining good interactions with consumers. Hotel companies should develop approaches to enhancing loyalty to the brand [141]. For instance, hotel brands can design an attractive loyalty program to enhance customer interest in the brand by making rewards more interesting or customizing rewards to meet customer needs. Furthermore, a loyalty program could allow their members to earn and redeem points at all of hotel chains [142].

5.3. Limitations and Future Research

There are some limitations; addressed as follows. First, this study mainly focused on a specific hotel industry context (i.e., a four- to five-star hotel). Further research should apply our model to additional industries, such as restaurants, resorts, and condotel, to attest to the generalization results and strengthen cross-sector validity in the tourism industry. Second, although the quantitative method was used, future studies may wish to apply a qualitative approach with an in-depth interview or both methods to deeply probe and obtain rich descriptive data from respondent standpoints. Furthermore, during the data collection, we received some feedback from respondents about the different quality between the local brand and foreign brands which have the same star rating hotel. Therefore, we need further comprehensive research to clarify the underlying reasons for this existing issue and its impact on customer brand experience and engagement.