The impact of strategic marketing and inbound marketing on customer loyalty: Case study Air Algérie

Abstract

In an increasingly competitive and digitized airline industry, passenger loyalty has become a major strategic challenge for carriers worldwide. Strategic marketing represents a fundamental driver in this regard, enabling organizations to create value for customers and build lasting relationships grounded in relevance and trust. At the same time, inbound marketing has progressively established itself as an essential tool for customer engagement in the digital age, built on attraction rather than interruption. Airlines must therefore integrate both dimensions into a coherent sequential framework in order to strengthen passenger loyalty and differentiate themselves in an ever more competitive environment. This study accordingly aims to examine the direct and mediated relationships between strategic marketing, inbound marketing, and customer loyalty in the context of Air Algérie, Algeria's state-owned national carrier. A quantitative approach is adopted through a structured online questionnaire administered to a sample of 284 Air Algérie passengers. Statistical analysis is conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics, employing descriptive statistics, Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses, simple and multiple linear regression, and PROCESS Model 4 mediation analysis with bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap resamples. The results show that strategic marketing exerts a strong positive direct effect on both customer loyalty and inbound marketing effectiveness, while inbound marketing in turn significantly and positively predicts customer loyalty. Mediation analysis confirms that inbound marketing partially mediates the strategic marketing–loyalty relationship, with approximately one-third of the total effect transmitted through this indirect channel, demonstrating the relay role that digital marketing practices play in translating strategic marketing capabilities into attitudinal and behavioral loyalty