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City has a continuous need to diversify its products and services to ensure longer tourists’ stays and a profitable tourism industry. Kuala Lumpur is one of the most popular cities in the world, and within its vicinity, Batu Caves are not only an important Hindu religious site, but also a popular tourist attraction. Guided by the four realms of experience dimensions (Pine and Gilmore, 1998), the purpose of this paper is to analyze 54 essays written by university students, to examine the experience of their visit to Batu Caves. The findings confirmed the application of all the four realm dimensions – entertainment, educational, esthetic and escapist – revealing both positive and negative aspects of the experience. Batu Caves may capitalize on the positive experiences as pointers to create an effective marketing communication, while negative experiences are opportunities to devise appropriate corrective measures, and perhaps further develop tourism products and services that would appeal to the visitors’ experience.

This study employed a qualitative research strategy to examine visitors’ experiences at Batu Caves using the four realms of experience theory as coined by Pine and Gilmore (1998). A total of 54 undergrads were asked to describe their visit to Batu Caves (Lucia-Palacios et al., 2016) providing a complete insight of their opinions, feelings and perceptions (Jüttner et al., 2013) using the essay writing method.

The authors discovered firm evidence of the theory’s application, revealing the expected four experiential dimensions in explaining experience at a cultural religious site, extending the description to include its positive and negative aspects, all of which are useful for destination management. The study points out a lot of aspects that must be managed by the site, such as the poor esthetic experience (e.g. smell, rubbish, graffiti, etc.), controlling the animal aggression (i.e. monkeys) and perhaps develop new products and services which could enhance some experiences (e.g. cultural escapism through cultural performances in which visitors could participate).

The main weakness of the research is perhaps the qualitative research work in which data were collected from essays written by the university students. Data of this nature prevent us from being able to generalize the findings and reflect on the experience to the general public.

Tourist stays in Kuala Lumpur could be enhanced by providing meaningful, deep and memorable experiences. Tourist attractions such as Batu Caves should continuously examine the experience that they provide to the visitors. Batu Caves’ management could continuously measure its tourists’ experience provisions, as tourists’ needs evolve over time. From the results they could revamp their products and services offering to ensure the sustainability of Batu Caves’ natural and cultural appeal among visitors and tourists alike.

The outcome provides a better understanding of the current tourism product and services at the destination that have an impact on a visitor’s experience. The findings will assist the Batu Caves’ management to revise and develop the products and service offerings to the visitors.

The World Islamic Tourism Mart in Malaysia has been attracting Muslim tourists from all over the world to choose Malaysia as their Islamic tourism destination. This paper aims to implement the concept of the travel career ladder (TCL) with the main purpose of the antecedents of travel motivation toward Malaysia for Islamic tourism destination (MMITD).

The theoretical model was tested using the structural equation modeling technique with partial least squares. A self-administered questionnaire was designed, distributed and collected from 180 effective participants who had visited Malaysia.

The findings revealed that the Islamic compliance with self-esteem needs, the Islamic compliance with relationship needs and the Islamic compliance with physiological needs have significant effects on Malaysia My Islamic tourism destination.

The scope of this research paper is limited to TCL including the Islamic compliance issues with self-fulfillment, self-esteem, relationship, safety and physiological needs. A small sample size was obtained with participants from the Muslim countries. A future study should be comprehensively conducted on larger and diverse sampling methods with participants from the Muslim and the non-Muslim major countries, as this paper particularly discusses the theoretical and managerial implications for the anticipated future studies.

The study yet attempts on the part of academicians in Malaysia, what travel motivational factors influence Islamic tourists to travel MMITD. Based on the previous literature and researcher’s experience, it is a new phenomenon and investigation on MMITD.

Emerging interest in medical tourism products offers a lucrative market and opens doors for Malaysia in positioning itself as a Muslim-preferred halal medical care center point. In spite of the tremendous capability of this industry, the Muslim-friendly medical tourism practice is rationally new idea, with endeavors to clarify such tourism product is inadequate. This paper aims to investigate the promoting Muslim-friendly medical tourism market mechanism and its prospects and challenges.

As the purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of the Muslim patient’s inspiration towards Muslim-friendly medical tourism market mechanism in Malaysia. This study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for data analysis. The target population for this research comprised Muslim medical tourists coming to Malaysia seeking Muslim-friendly medical tourism. A total sample size of 231 is gathered through non-probability sampling method during the period between July and December 2015.

The outcome confirms that Muslim tourist’s perceptions play a critical part in travel intention to Malaysia for Muslim-friendly medication. Along these lines, Malaysia needs to promote the success of such medical tourism endeavors with proper practice and services they offer to pull in more outside patients.

Malaysia is a country that has long been a stronghold for Muslim leisure visitors. Differences in general and spiritual values raise challenges to Muslim-friendly medical care services. A comprehensive research is required on the best way to advance and set up emerging Muslim-friendly medical tourism market mechanism.

Muslim-friendly medical tourism is a rising advertising discipline. It is confident that the findings could expand information on Muslim-friendly medical tourism service sector and improve providers’ capacity to take advantage of the developing business sector, offering quality medical care services and opportunities that suit the Muslim patients’ needs. In addition, it is essential to understand the most ideal approach to outline Muslim-friendly medical tourism market to make it more useful to various spiritual and religious accept.

This study aims to investigate the perceived role of the Islamic medical care practice of Muslim doctors in Malaysian Muslim-friendly private hospitals.

Data were collection through self-administered questionnaires voluntarily submitted by the respondents. The survey covered selected major Muslim-friendly private hospitals in the country in the states of Kedah, Johor, Penang, Selangor, Kelantan and Kuala Lumpur. The non-probability purposive sampling was used, as the respondents and locations of the survey areas were predetermined.

Five dimensions of the Muslim-friendly medical care practice were identified, namely, medical etiquettes, physical examination, proper cleansing process of blood and body fluids, proper handling and treatment of infectious diseases and doctors’ advice to Muslim patients. The findings also indicate that the scale development analysis produced excellent results which can be used for reproducible or repetitive medical care purposes and for integration facts and figures for inclusion into wider medical care policy and practices.

The results from the study can further develop Islamic medical care practices and enable medical service providers to upgrade their performances to an enviable strategic status.

Islamic medical care is a new mode of healthcare service market, as there are very few studies on this topic from the perspective of Muslim patients or no obvious facts are known. This study has first explored Muslim doctors’ perceived role in Islamic medical care practice in Malaysian Muslim-friendly private hospitals. This empirical study can immensely contribute to the further development of Islamic medical care practice for Muslim doctors in particular and for the Muslim-friendly hospital service marketing strategy in general.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of visitors using the strategic experiential modules (SEMs).

In this study, the authors analysed a total of 37 essays written by University of Malaya students who visited the attraction on 23 November 2013. The aim is to explore what constitutes the elements within the SEMs, pertaining to the students’ visit. The results are potentially useful for future Zoo Negara marketing communication initiatives, as well as for the management to remedy the shortfalls which have hindered Zoo Negara from operating as a self-sustaining attraction.

The results confirmed the applicability of all five dimensions of the modules, which include both positive and negative elements. Of the five dimensions, THINK and SENSE were the most frequently expressed.

Though this study offers no theoretical contribution, it does demonstrate the applicability of the Schmitt theory on SEMs and the usefulness of such an application from the managerial perspective.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which the nation branding activities of export promotion organisations (EPOs), investment agencies (IAs), national tourism organisations (NTOs) and embassies follow the principle of coordination that characterises an integrated marketing communications approach.

A qualitative exploratory approach was taken, comprising face‐to‐face in‐depth interviews with key informants from five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) involved in the implementation of nation branding communications in terms of export promotion, tourism, investment attraction and public diplomacy.

Seven key dimensions of interorganisational coordination in a nation branding context emerge from our results. These dimensions include sector, organisation domicile, mode, strategy formulation, nature, frequency and target audience.

The relatively small dataset as well as the restricted geographic scope of the study limits the generalisability of the findings; further research is required to ascertain whether the findings of this study also apply in other settings.

Enhanced coordination needs to occur not only between the different governmental organisations engaged in nation branding strategy, but also between those organisations and their respective private sector stakeholders.

This paper extends previous work on the need for countries to adopt a coordinated approach to their nation branding activities. The paper is original in its examination of actors’ perceptions of the optimal degree of coordination that should occur between a country's EPO, IA, NTO and embassies. The paper is also original in its reporting of findings from a region (ASEAN) that is under‐researched relative to other areas, such as Europe and North America.

Many studies have examined the influence of travel motivation on destination preferences; however, little is known about Muslim tourists’ leisure travel behaviour. This study aims to examine the influence of travel motivation on destination preferences using the moderating effect of religiosity from the perspective of Iranian and Malay Muslims.

Data were collected from 422 Malay and Iranian Muslim students using a purposive sampling technique, and later analyzed using Amos.

Results indicated that generic, Islamic and non-Islamic motivational factors influence social, religious and hedonic avoidance travel preferences. Muslims who are motivated by generic and non-Islamic motivations avoid travels to destinations with the presence of Islamic service and products, while those who are motivated by religious factors prefer destinations with Islamic attributes.

The results of this study highlight the importance of Islamic-related features in destinations for Muslim tourists.