Halal tourism: travel motivators and customer retention

ABSTRACT

This research was designed to identify halal-friendly travel motivation factors and unearth their role in Muslim customer retention process in Korea. Qualitative and quantitative procedures were used to achieve research objectives. A comprehensive structural model was developed to distinguish the role of all proposed indicators. Our results revealed that halal-friendly travel motivations are significantly associated with customer return on investment and satisfaction, and that such relationships contribute to improving customer retention. The effectiveness of higher-order structure of halal-friendly travel motivations was demonstrated. The formation of Muslim customers’ post-purchase decisions was significantly moderated by the sense of belonging to a tourist destination.

KEYWORDS:

• Muslim travelers
• halal-friendly travel motivations
• sense of belonging
• customer retention
• customer return on investment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.