An important finding of this study is the critical role of brand affiliation, which
explains a large portion of variance in both RevPAR and NOIPAR. Literature on
branding and brand equity has suggested that a good brand is valuable not only to the
brand owner (i.e. franchisors) but also to the brand user (i.e. franchisees) and the
ultimate consumers of the product/service (e.g. Kim et al., 2003; Roh and Yoon, 2009).
While the link between brand and guest satisfaction had been well established, taking
a hotel owner’s perspective, brand names are also relevant to hotel revenue, profit, and
return on investment (e.g. O’Neill and Mattila, 2010). A study by Kim et al. (2003) on 12
upscale hotel brands revealed that a strong brand can contribute to hotel RevPAR
through increased brand image, brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand
loyalty. Moreover, a study of O’Neill and Xiao (2006) has shown that brand affiliation
contributes significantly to a hotel’s market value, and certain brands have greater
influence on hotel valuations than other brands. While the actual hotel brand names
were not made available by STR for this research, results of this study support such a
view of “brand power” by revealing that some brands have achieved higher RevPAR
and NOIPAR levels than others across multiple hotel owners.