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Antecedents of word of mouth in Muslim-friendly tourism marketing: the role of religiosity

Abror Abror (Department of Management, Universitas Negeri Padang, Padang, Indonesia)
Dina Patrisia (Department of Management, Universitas Negeri Padang, Padang, Indonesia)
Okki Trinanda (Department of Management, Universitas Negeri Padang, Padang, Indonesia)
Maznah Wan Omar (Department of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia)
Yunia Wardi (Department of Management, Universitas Negeri Padang, Padang, Indonesia)

Journal of Islamic Marketing

ISSN: 1759-0833

Article publication date: 21 April 2020

Issue publication date: 12 May 2021

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the impact of religiosity on Muslim-friendly destination performance, customer engagement and customer satisfaction; the mediating impact of Muslim-friendly destination performance, customer engagement and customer satisfaction on the link between religiosity and word of mouth (WOM); and the moderating impact of religiosity on the relationship between Muslim-friendly tourism, customer engagement and customer satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

The population of this study was all tourists who visited West Sumatra Indonesia. By using a survey through questionnaires, this study has got 393 out of 450 collected responses (83.6%). This research used the structural equation modeling as the data analysis technique.

Findings

This research found that religiosity is a significant antecedent of Muslim-friendly tourism, customer engagement and tourist satisfaction. This study revealed that Muslim-friendly tourism, customer engagement and tourist satisfaction significantly mediate the link between religiosity and WOM. This research also found that religiosity significantly moderates the effect of Muslim-friendly tourism on tourist satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

This study was only conducted in Indonesia; hence, it lacks generality. Accordingly, future studies can expand to several other countries such as Southeast Asian countries which have big Muslim population. This study only focused on Muslim-friendly tourism industry as a whole. For future studies, it can be extended to several related industries, such as hotel, food and beverage and halal cosmetic.

Practical implications

This study has shown the important of manager knowledge about religiosity of customers. Accordingly, when they want to increase tourists’ WOM, they have to increase tourist perceived quality of Muslim-friendly tourism attributes which also have an impact on customer engagement and tourist satisfaction.

Originality/value

This study proposes the direct relationship between religiosity and Muslim-friendly tourism, the religiosity-customer engagement link and the religiosity-tourist satisfaction relation. This research has revealed the mediating effect of Muslim-friendly tourism, satisfaction and engagement on the link between religiosity and WOM. This study has also revealed the impact of religiosity in strengthening the link between halal tourism and tourist satisfaction which is limited previously.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Authors thank to Universitas Negeri Padang for the research grant opportunity.

Funding: This work was supported by Universitas Negeri Padang, Jl. professor Hamka Air Tawar Padang, Indonesia.

Citation

Abror, A., Patrisia, D., Trinanda, O., Omar, M.W. and Wardi, Y. (2021), "Antecedents of word of mouth in Muslim-friendly tourism marketing: the role of religiosity", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 882-899. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-01-2020-0006

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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