Travel agencies have become increasingly competitive in today’s travel market with high-quality standardization of information and services provided to customer. Each travel agency is a brand in itself, reflecting its core differentiation strategy ... Travel agencies have become increasingly competitive in today’s travel market with high-quality standardization of information and services provided to customer. Each travel agency is a brand in itself, reflecting its core differentiation strategy to maintain its competitive edge. The brand personality is a crucial element of this differentiation strategy. Brand personality, the human traits that consumers confer on brands, is a means of expressing individual consumer’s numerous characteristics, and thus it plays a direct and crucial role in deciding consumers’ purchase intention. The purpose of this study is to verify the aspects of a brand personality that affect brand attachment and brand loyalty. In other words, the aim is to study the fundamental intangible asset of a brand marketing strategy that attracts brand loyalty and is the core brand asset of corporations. This will form the baseline data for travel agencies to help them maintain long-term sustainable growth. To achieve this objective, an in-depth study on brand personality, brand attachment, and brand loyalty was conducted through literature research, based on which we set the research model and the hypotheses. Of the 320 survey samples distributed, 298 samples of positive research were received and 288 samples were analyzed. Frequency analysis was conducted to identify the general characteristics based on the received surveys, while exploratory factor analysis was conducted to verify the validity of the measurement equipment and reliability analysis was conducted to verify the reliability. In addition, the hypotheses were verified using regression analysis to identify the causal relationship among the variables. The results of the analysis of the samples of positive research are as follows. First, sincerity, elegance, and strength of the brand personality were found to have a significant effect on the reliability of the brand, while capability and vitality did not seem to have much influence. To enhance the effect of reliability on brand attachment, travel agencies need to have a sense of responsibility and sincerity when dealing with clients, while strength as a reliable brand is also crucial in increasing the effect of reliability on brand attachment. Sincerity, elegance, vitality, and strength of brand personality were also found to have a significant effect on liking toward the brand, while capability did not have any effect. In addition, elegance and strength of brand personality had a significant impact on interest in the brand, although, sincerity, capability, and vitality did not. Therefore, a great investment on sincerity, elegance, vitality, and strength of brand personality is essential to enhance brand attachment and invite brand loyalty. To highlight the interest in the brand, elegance and strength are the factors of brand personality that need to be embraced in the brand. The elegance factor in a brand personality can be said to be the most important aspect as it influences reliability, affection, and interest in the brand leading to brand attachment. Since elegance in a brand personality creates an appealing image in a customer’s mind, travel agents need to differentiate themselves by looking into the customer evaluation of their representative logo, color, and uniform, and the modernity of their webpage design. In addition, among the factors of reliability, liking, and interest for enhancing brand attachment, the “capability” factor of the brand personality was not pinpointed. This means that the level of professional knowledge and skills of the employees of the travel agencies do not have an impact on factors that enhance brand attachment. Accordingly, to enhance travel agency brand attachment in terms of marketing, one needs to appeal to customers by projecting an image of sincerity, elegance, vitality, and strength rather than focusing on capacity. Second, the research showed that reliability and liking as factors to improve brand attachment had an effect on brand loyalty, while the interest factor did not have any influence on brand loyalty. As brand attachment leads to brand loyalty, which is the fundamental reason for purchase, travel agencies need to foster necessary conditions for customers to recommend the agency to others by making reliability, trust, and affection as part of their brand personality. Third, sincerity, capability, and strength of a travel agency brand personality had a significant impact on brand loyalty, while elegance and vitality did not affect brand loyalty. Since brand loyalty is a crucial factor that determines customers’ purchase of travel packages and sales increase, marketing strategies to highlight sincerity, capability, and strength of brand personality are essential to enhance brand loyalty. Future research based on this study can aim at developing, measuring, and identifying brand personality factors that well reflect the features and culture of travel agencies.
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