Customer Engagement Behaviors in Hospitality: Customer-Based Antecedents

Abstract

Customer engagement behaviors have received little attention in hospitality research. Previous research about their antecedents studies these behaviors isolatedly, out of the lens of customer engagement. This limits our understanding of the phenomenon and the managerial insights required to manage several customer engagement behaviors simultaneously. In this research, we aim to partially fill this gap, by studying the influence of customer-based factors on two important customer engagement behaviors for the hospitality industry: word-of-mouth and co-creation. We estimate our model with consistent PLS. The results of this study indicate that two types of drivers motivate customer engagement behaviors: common vs. behavior-specific antecedents, thus setting a theoretical base for future research about the topic. Customer resources moderate their influence. For practitioners, this study facilitates the management of customer engagement behaviors by indicating which antecedents exert their influence on them and highlighting the importance of implementing segmentation programs when managing customer engagement behaviors.