Impact of Affiliate Marketing on Customer Loyalty

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Alson Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotels

2 Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, University of Sadat City

Abstract

Customer loyalty is a vital issue for the success and sustainability of tourism industry. In addition, the concept of affiliate marketing internet business has become notable among online customers in the past years. Nevertheless, there is a few research examining customer loyalty towards affiliate marketing websites. Therefore, this research investigates customer loyalty towards travel affiliate marketing websites (booking.com). Based on previous studies, this research applies six factors (affiliate website promotion, price comparison service, WOM in social media, quality web design, privacy, trust) as essence and supplementary services which impact customer perspective in loyalty. This research aims to find out which factors in travel affiliate websites can influence customer loyalty in the in tourism industry. In this research, questionnaires are sent travel affiliate website users (booking.com) to collect quantitative data. Statistical analysis is used to verify the seven hypotheses to analyze the collected data. The result points to six factors in both core and supplementary services that support customer perspective towards loyalty. After analyzing the results of the customers, those used booking.com, the research discover that customers who booking.com have stronger opinions on 'privacy and security' factor. Customer perceived value has significant positive relations to customer satisfaction that may influence customer loyalty.

Keywords