Travel and tour businesses` strategies in engaging tour packages towards Islamic Tourism : an empirical study in Malaysia

Abstract

In the recent years, the interest on “Islamic Tourism” seems to be a chosen topic in the industry. The public also seemed to be aware of the word ‘Islamic tourism’, but the concept or the comprehensive idea has not been broadly discussed into more aggressive issues. Islamic tourism is a new dimension of travel and its intention is not to replace an existing tourist activity, but to open up a new and an exciting opportunity for growth. Islamic tourism has huge potential to be explored in the tourism industry. In its wide sense, this new niche category of tourism maintains the principles and ideologies of Islam. To boost tourists to the market, it is important for the travel stakeholders to explore the appropriate strategies in their business. In fact, one of the successes of the travel and tourism industry also very depends on the initiatives and strategies of travel and tour businesses because they involve directly with the tourists by introducing, promoting and selling the tour packages. However, in some other factors, many travel and tour businesses have still not actively planned and developed the potential Islamic tourism products and services especially for inbound activities which relevantly needed in the market. As a travel stakeholder, they should anticipate and improve some substantial requirements on certain considerations of products and services. The components that are relevant to the development of tour packages must be attempted accordingly in dealing with this market. The strategies should be incorporated with the appropriate selective Islamic destinations as well as the provision of Islamic tourism criteria. Hence, this study has proposed a measurement tool through which travel and tour business strategies can be measured. This study was based on primary data collection. A total of 292 completed data from the registered travel and tour companies in Malaysia was used to run the analysis. The questionnaire items used in this study were mostly developed based on the literature reviews. After all, the items were validated through EFA, CFA and SEM. The goodness of fit indices was calculated which confirmed a solid base for the proposed measurement tool used in this study. This current study has confirmed that from the Malaysian Islamic tourism perspective, “Product/Service Innovation” can be one of the travel and tour business strategies in engaging tour packages towards Islamic tourism. The components are explained by six determinants – Islamic Quality Attraction, ‘Shariah’ Requirements, Islamic Competence On-Tour Staff, Price, Trust, and Safety and Security Aspects. Besides the “Product/Service Innovation” substantiated the significant relationship to the travel and tour business strategies. The findings of this study also confirmed that the “Cooperation and Collaboration”, “Communication and Promotion” and “Service Encounter” constructs have positive and significant relationship to the travel and tour business strategies incorporating towards the Islamic tourism.