1. Introduction Loyalty is a substantially important concept in the hotel industry, because the majority of sectors in this industry have reached saturation (Bowen & Shoemaker, 2003); and given the expansion of global market competitions, many hotels are now facing numerous challenges in retaining their customers (Ganesh, Arnold, & Reynolds, 2000). In this regard, leading the customer loyalty through an approach of creating relations with the customer has transformed into a market strategy for the majority of services offered by hotels. Meanwhile, Mashhad is the biggest and most important pilgrimage city in Iran with more than 25 million tourists travelling to the city per year for pilgrimage and visiting tourist destinations...