What drives consumers to keep the top-tier elite membership of premium hotels : Economic Needs or Spiritual Needs?

Sammanfattning: It is well recognized that due to customers’ ever-growing material and cultural needs for a better life, an increasing number of people choose to experience premium hotels on their work trips or personal travels to keep top-tier elite membership of premium hotels. Previously, most luxury consumption research showed that higher needs drive consumer behaviour, such as identifying recognition and self-esteem. However, many people still focus on achieving job tasks, increasing income, or saving money by their membership. This phenomenon brings a puzzle about whether keeping top-tier elite membership of premium hotels is driven by spiritual needs or economic needs. To address that, this study drew on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. It investigates the effects of spiritual needs (higher need) and economic needs (lower need) on consumer willingness to keep top-tier elite membership of premium hotels and how individual education levels moderate these effects. This study administers an online questionnaire-based survey among top-tier elite membership owners of premium hotels in mainland China. It uses the PLS-SEM technique to analyse the 150 valid questionnaires we collected. Our empirical findings indicate that spiritual needs, instead of economic needs, are the key driver to encourage consumers to maintain their top-tier elite membership of premium hotels. Furthermore, we uncover the moderating effect of individual education level and determine that the positive impact of spiritual needs on consumer willingness to keep top-tier elite membership of premium hotels is strengthened among highly educated people. Therefore, this study mainly reinforces the theoretical and practical value of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in luxury consumption research and extends its application, meanwhile, advances the research on luxury consumption and particularly in top-tier elite members of premium hotels.