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Worldwide growth in both the Muslim middle class and younger generation has resulted in Islamic tourism becoming a significant global market segment, and a key growth sector for the economies of Islamic countries. The 121 million Muslim tourists of 2016 were expected to be 156 million in 2020, whereas the total spendings of US $220 billion of Muslim tourists will reach in 2026, $300 billion. This chapter focuses on Iran as one of the important Muslim-friendly destinations. With Islamic principles already in place, Iran is aiming to become a world hub for Islamic or halal tourism, while meeting new challenges and pursuing creative alternatives.

Studies of disaster and conflict often mention the Indonesian case of Aceh province because of its twin histories of separatist conflict and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, each with massive losses of life and infrastructural damages. This chapter addresses the tourism angle in Aceh’s tourism–disaster–conflict nexus with a review and analysis of the efforts to memorialise these events through the establishment of museums in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. Museums that preserve dark aspects of the past, such as violent wars, disasters and mass death must navigate the tension between providing a record of what has occurred and engaging with collective memory while not denying the individual experience of the event. The tsunami has been formally commemorated with a monumental, centrally located museum. Meanwhile, a few local non-governmental organisations with a small grant from an international donor struggled to establish a Peace and Human Rights Museum to commemorate the violence and human rights violations of the war in Aceh. Memories of Aceh’s conflict remain largely in the informal sphere. These divergent memorialisations of Aceh’s disasters and conflicts serve as a point of entry for examining how museums and their benefactors engage in contested memory politics.

For sustainable progress of heritage tourism in Muslim regions, exaggerated and distorted notions of Islam have to be dispelled. To accomplish such an arduous task, the first step is to examine media content employed by key tourism organizations/agencies in Muslim countries. This chapter examines the heritage environments and contemporary macro environment factors in Muslim countries that are either secular or Islamic in nature. Using cultural indicators, it further analyzes the content of website marketing employed by the leading tourism authorities in the selected regions to understand if considerations and efforts are made to market Muslim heritage. The findings indicate mixed results.

Islam began in western Arabia with the preaching of Prophet Muhammad (ca. 570–632 CE) and has since spread through expansion, economic trade, missionaries, and migration. CE is an abbreviation of Common Era and is the system used in this book. In this system for recording dates, 2009 CE represents 1430 after Hegira (abbreviated as AH). During his life, Mohammad was able to unite virtually the whole of the Arabian Peninsula under Islam. After his death, Islam expanded north into Syria (636 CE), east into Persia and beyond (636 CE), and west into Egypt (640 CE), and then into Spain (711 CE). Dissention about the procedure for choice of the Muslim leader (caliph) led to the proclamation of a rival caliph in Damascus in 661 and the establishment of the Shia faith (Donner 2004). Islam arrived in the area known today as Pakistan in 711 when the Umayyad dynasty sent a Muslim Arab army that conquered the northwestern part of Indus Valley from Kashmir to the Arabian Sea (Esposito and Donner 1999). Today, the majority of Muslims worldwide are Sunni but Shia Muslims constitute the majority of the population in Iran as well as are significant minorities in Pakistan, India, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality. Motivation of the researchers in constructing the chapter was to logically alert the present-day and future world tourism and hospitality business leaders on how to respond to the disruptive forces attributed to deadly viral pandemics like that of COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose being to draw conclusions and identifying the research gaps. It is based on a structural analysis methodology to frame the categories of the major analysis in combination with scientific rigour to a broad and complex problem. Research results proved that the primary effects of COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality industry include technology disruption, globalisation problems and logistical inefficiencies. Implications to contemporary tourism and hospitality industry business leaders include bringing-in technologies, incubating survival plans of actions. The study results underscore the necessity of understanding effects of COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality so as to craft both proactive and reactive strategic stances. The research contributes to literature and theoretical novel introspections into the depth and breadth of how various tourism and hospitality industry metamorphoses can lead to navigation and survival in such COVID-19 pandemic environments.

Solo travelling has been one of the rising types of travelling, especially after the pandemic. This study is focused on solo female travellers and aims to present a comprehensive literature review on solo travelling. For this aim, a detailed literature review is performed. The significance of this study lies in the recent developments in countries like Iran regarding women's rights, and it needs to be understood that women are powerful, and they can prove that by travelling solo. This study is aimed to contribute to women's empowerment because it is important to set various examples and pave the way for the next generations towards a more free, enlightened, conscious and modern future. As a segment, solo female travellers need to be characterised in terms of their demographics and motivations for solo travelling, and destinations should take precautions for their safety and security to be represented and promoted as a safe and modern location where the freedom of each individual is secured.

There exists a shortage of studies that establish linkages between entrepreneurial orientation and debt financing in family businesses. In line with this research stream, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and debt financing of family businesses. Specifically, the study investigates how the five entrepreneurial orientation dimensions – risk-taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy influence family business debt financing. By adopting a qualitative research methodology and based on empirical evidence gathered through a 10-case study design involving face-to-face interviews with owners of family businesses in Nigeria, the study examines the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on debt financing. The results suggest that the entrepreneurial orientation of family businesses seems to play a pivotal role in influencing debt financing. If a firm is entrepreneurial-oriented, it is reasonable to expect that it will focus attention on new and emerging opportunities for obtaining debt financing. The study advances research on entrepreneurial orientation and debt financing in family businesses. It develops an empirically theoretical framework at the intersection of the family business and entrepreneurial orientation research, filling a gap in the literature. Future research could substantiate the findings of this study on a broader empirical base, using quantitative methods. This study offers a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurial orientation and, at the same time, contributes with findings from research on entrepreneurial orientation to the study of debt financing in family businesses.

This chapter discusses aspects of the relationship between Islam and tourism in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Islam is shown to exercise considerable influence over social and political systems in the first three countries, in addition to affecting the tourism industry. It also gives rise to a series of particular demands from adherents, reflected in a movement termed Islamic tourism that encompasses product development and marketing efforts designed for and directed at Muslims. The activities of the four countries in the field are reviewed, revealing an appreciation of the volume and value of Muslim markets. However, there are challenges to overcome if the prospects for future growth are to be fully realized.