Customer Experience Management and Brand Equity in Nigerian Luxury Hotels: A Management Perspective

This study examines the relationship between customer experience management (CEM) practices and brand equity in Nigerian luxury hotels from a management perspective, focusing on selected five-star establishments in Lagos State, South West Nigeria. Luxury hospitality in Nigeria has grown significantly, with international hotel brands and domestic luxury properties competing for corporate and high-net-worth individual patronage. Customer experience has emerged as the primary battleground for brand differentiation in this sector. The study adopts a mixed-method design combining structured surveys of 140 hotel guests and in-depth interviews with 18 senior marketing and operations managers. Guest data are analysed using descriptive statistics and regression, while manager interviews are coded thematically. CEM dimensions assessed include pre-stay communication, personalisation, service consistency, and post-stay engagement, evaluated against brand equity outcomes of awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. Preliminary findings suggest that personalisation and service consistency are the strongest experiential predictors of brand equity, while pre-stay digital communication significantly influences expectation alignment and satisfaction. Recommendations target general managers, marketing directors, and brand strategists of Nigerian luxury hotels on designing experience management systems that deliver measurable brand equity enhancement. This study contributes to the luxury services marketing and hotel branding literature with empirical evidence from the Nigerian hospitality context. Keywords: customer experience management, brand equity, luxury hotels, Lagos, hospitality marketing