Marketing Public Relations, Electronic Customer Relationship Management, and Service Quality as Panaceas to Enhance Customer Loyalty in the Hospitality Industry: The Roles of Computer Anxiety and Interpersonal Relationships

From a strategic standpoint, customer loyalty is a crucial objective across both service and product-oriented sectors, especially in today’s highly competitive landscape. Extensive literature highlights the significant roles of service quality (SQ) and Electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM) in fostering loyalty, with customer satisfaction often acting as a mediating factor. Although Marketing Public Relations (MPR) is also recognized as a strategic tool in loyalty building, it has received comparatively limited scholarly attention. This study examines the contributions of MPR, e-CRM, and SQ to customer loyalty in the Malaysian hospitality industry, while investigating the mediating role of customer satisfaction and the moderating effects of computer anxiety and interpersonal relationships. An integrative theoretical framework was developed, grounded in structuralism, individualism, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR), and both FIRO and FIRO-Behavior theories. Employing a quantitative approach, questionnaires were distributed across four-star hotels in Kuala Lumpur. Data were analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). The findings reveal that MPR, SQ, and e-CRM directly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Interpersonal relationships strengthen the link between SQ and customer satisfaction, as well as between customer satisfaction and loyalty. In contrast, computer anxiety weakens the relationship between e-CRM and customer satisfaction. While adaptable to other industries, the proposed model provides actionable insights for academics, practitioners, and industry stakeholders.