THE INFLUENCE OF SERVICE QUALITY ON CUSTOMERS' RETENTION AND LOYALTY IN THE UAE HOTEL SECTOR WITH RESPECT TO THE IMPACT OF CUSTOMER’ SATISFACTION, TRUST, AND COMMITMENT: A QUALITATIVE STUDY
Salama Alketbi, Muhammad Turki Alshurideh, Barween Al Kurdi
Abstract
The coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic is changing the business activities, systems, and operationsaround the world these days. Such a crisis makes all business institutions in a large number ofbusiness sectors shrink, suspend or close their business operations. One of the main problems thatsuch institutions face is losing their customers and accordingly releases a large number of theiremployees. Accordingly, customer retention becomes one of the main business concepts that needto be studied again especially in the hotel sector. The research aims to explore the main factorsthat affect positively customer retention and loyalty in the hospitality industry, in particular, thehotels' sector in the UAE.This study extends the literature by giving more light at the effects of service quality, customersatisfaction, trust, and commitment particularly in the hotels' sector in UAE that lead toempowering customer retention and loyalty of these hotels. A qualitative method is conducted to 542this exploration and interviews were handled among hotel customers in the UAE to collect primarydata. The data are analyzed through various steps involving the coding process and the categorizingprocess. The findings of this study ensure the significant effect of service quality on satisfaction,trust, and commitment, which influence effectively in return the retention and loyalty of customers.