earticle

영어

With the intense competition and the increased cost of attracting new customers, companies are more focusing their efforts on customer satisfaction and switching barriers. Switching barrier can be defined as any factor which makes it difficult or costly for consumers to change providers. Using data of customers of China hotels, we examine the structural relationships switching barriers, relationship commitment, switching intention and customer loyalty. The results indicate that alternative attractiveness, switching cost and interpersonal relationship consist of switching barriers. Alternative attractiveness and switching cost have negatively impact on switching intention, but switching cost has no significant impact on switching intention. We also find switching barriers have positively impact on relationship commitment. Our results also show alternative attractiveness and interpersonal relationships are positively relation to customer loyalty, but switching cost is not significantly relation to customer loyalty. In addition, we find relationship commitment negatively impact on switching intention and positively impact on customer loyalty. More results and implications are discussed toward the end.