CONSUMER ETHNOCENTRISM INFLUENCE IN CHOOSING A HOTEL IN DOMESTIC TOURISM-EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA AND CROATIA

Purpose: The role of consumer ethnocentrism (CE) in choosing a hotel is still not well explored. This research aims to identify if there is a relationship between CE and the preference of Romanian/Croatian respondents for a hotel belonging to a domestic chain vs. international (foreign) chain. Methodology: Exploratory and descriptive research was performed. The data were collected thorough an online survey, aiming for a quota sample stratified by age and gender. The resulting sample comprises 714 and 832 valid questionnaires in Romania and in Croatia, respectively. Factor analysis, nonparametric cor-relation analysis, and hypothesis testing were performed. Results: "Defensive patriotism" and "protectionism" were identified as CE factors. CE is moderately ex-pressed for Croatian and Romanian respondents. Respondents from two countries with higher CE factors prefer a national rather than an international hotel. Customers who grew up in the communist era have higher ethnocentrism scores on defensive patriotism and protectionism and prefer national hotels more than those formed in the post-communist period. Conclusion: The results of this research relate to the previously revealed regularity that ethnocentric con-sumers prefer buying national rather than foreign goods and services. The same is now confirmed for re-spondents' hotel preferences when engaging in domestic tourism, contributing to closing a research gap. However, the results indicate that polycentric consumers might evaluate hotels by other criteria and not necessarily by their association with an international chain. In addition, in the case of re-checking post-COVID-19 results, the results presented here can serve as a pre-COVID-19 baseline.