The mediating role of relationship quality in the impact of service quality and experience on loyalty: An application in the hotel industry

One of the biggest sources of income for our country is the tourism sector. Accommodation establishments constitute an important part of this sector. The importance of the concepts of service quality, experience, relationship quality, replacement cost and loyalty is increasing day by day in the increasing competition among accommodation businesses with globalization. In this study, it is aimed to examine the relationships between service quality, experience, relationship quality, switching cost and loyalty variables simultaneously with structural equation modeling. Within the scope of the analysis, it is aimed to examine the mediating role of relationship quality in the effect of service quality and experience on loyalty and to determine the mediating role of switching cost in the effect of relationship quality on loyalty with the bootstrap method. For this purpose, a model has been created with the inferences from the studies in the literature. In order to test the model, a questionnaire was applied to 719 people who stayed in accommodation establishments between 23th of November in 2022 and 13th of January in 2023, reached by convenience sampling method. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 24 programs. According to the results obtained in the research, it was determined that service quality affects experience and relationship quality and does not have a significant effect on loyalty, experience affects relationship quality and loyalty, relationship quality has an effect on switching cost and loyalty, and switching cost has a weak effect on loyalty. In addition, it has been determined that relationship quality has a mediating effect on the effect of service quality and experience on loyalty, and switching cost has a mediating effect on the effect of relationship quality on loyalty.