Modeling Islamic tourism with particular reference to the most populated Islamic country

Abstract

The literature on spiritual tourism and destination marketing is growing with the research interest to explain why people travel and choose any specific spiritual destination. However, research on Islamic religious tourism is observed to be scarce even though Muslims engaging in Islamic religious tourism are highest in numbers. More significantly, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population and the most Muslim religious tourists in the world, but no research has been reported to study their travel behavior. The literature on Muslims, mainly Indonesians, traveling for spiritual journeys within their country or overseas was reviewed in this research. Hence, this conceptual paper presents a research model which aims to understand the factors that motivate Indonesians who travel for Islamic spiritual tourism. The model comprises of the personal and external factors. There are three personal factors, namely religious belief, learning and inspiration to visit the holy site. The three external factors are identified as social status, the role of family and financial costs. Relationships between these factors are discussed, together with the research propositions. Research implications of the conceptual model are also highlighted in this paper. In the future, these factors will be empirically tested.