The Mediating Effects of Customer Delighted between Satisfaction and Loyalty- A Case Study of International Tourist Hotel in Central Region of Taiwan

[[abstract]]In the past decades, companies has transformed from production-oriented to customer-oriented. Marketing concept focuses on attracting customers so as to retain customers, and customer satisfaction plays an important role in the process. In most researches on satisfaction, scholars believe that satisfaction will have positive effect on loyalty. However, recent studies points out that satisfaction is not the faith, thus, some scholars propose that customers delight can enhance customer loyalty. However, other scholars urge that companies stop thinking about how to deliver customer delight. Thus, the relationship between delight and loyalty is deserved to be further investigated. Constructs of facilities (product) quality, staff service quality, satisfaction, delight, and loyalty are used to form the conceptual framework after confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A structural equation model (SEM) software is employed to test the hypotheses deduced from literature review. The 353 samples have been collected from customers of international tourist hotels in central region of Taiwan. The result is that both facilities (products) quality and staff satisfaction have impact on satisfaction, and satisfaction in turn, impacts on loyalty and delight. Delight exerts somewhat mediating effect between the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. However, lodging motivation doesn’t moderate any relationship between links of construct. This implies that if companies can create delight for customers, their loyalty will be reinforced