Abstract:
Building and maintaining brand loyalty is crucial for every organisation in such
competitive business environment and organisations in the hospitality industry are not
spared. Hotels have made many efforts on branding to gain brand loyalty from their
customers and recently they have carried their efforts to social media to survive in
online environment as well. The growth in social media marketing is attributed to the
increase in social networking users, internet users, mobile phone users and digital
content consumption. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish the effect of
social media marketing on brand loyalty in the hospitality industry in Zimbabwe, with
age as a moderator. Data was gathered from 223 hotel customers using a structured
questionnaire with Likert-type questions. The findings show that social media marketing
positively influences brand loyalty in emerging market. Also, the study findings show
that age moderate the effect of social media marketing on brand loyalty. The study
contributes to studies that proved a significant relationship between social media
marketing and brand loyalty by including the moderating role of age. Thus, hospitality
organisations are advised to utilise social media marketing in order to improve brand
loyalty. In addition, they must consider the moderating role of age when formulating
social media marketing strategies to enhance brand loyalty.
