What Makes Customers Loyal to an Online Booking Brand? The Effects of Online Brand Experience and Brand Attachment

Recently, the research theme regarding online brand experience has gained much attention from tourism academics and practitioners. Drawn upon the extended Attachment–Aversion relationship model, a proposed mediation model aims to examine the relationships among online brand experience, brand attachment, and online brand loyalty in the context of online booking. Accordingly, Smart-PLS 3.0 is employed to examine the PLS-SEM model with the data of 304 Vietnamese respondents. The findings validate the measurement scale of six sub-dimensions, which contributes to the literature a novel conceptualization of online brand experience. Furthermore, individual weights of sub-dimensions provide a deeper understanding of how online bookers experience online platforms. Also, the research complements empirical evidence of the mediating effect of brand attachment on the relationship between online brand experience and online brand loyalty through the lens of brand prominence and brand-self connection regarding the online context, consequently strengthening its significance in the e-branding literature. Additionally, managerial insights are provided to marketers in creating proper marketing strategies.