Reflective Journal (Farhana Syahirah)

Fundamental of Tourism and Hospitality
Farhana Syahirah binti Saiful Zamre
17DUP19F1001

5.3.3 Discuss the motivation of travelling from Islamic perspective

Muslim tourism is an important sector to be concerned on because it is not only a rapid growing market but also the second largest religion in the in the world. The global revenue in tourism sector is highly contributed by Muslim tourist and this has become an interesting topic to look into. Besides, motivation is the indicator to explain the reasons of people willing to travel. Travel Career Ladder is believed as the appropriate theory to illustrate the determinants that influence their travel motivation but there are lack of studies upon the travel motivation in Muslim context. The purpose of this study is to further investigate travel motivation  by using Travel Career Ladder modified into Muslim context.

The travel of Muslim determinants are modified stimulation into perceived risk relationship into bond of silaturahim, self-esteem and development and fulfilment are combined into knowledge widening whereas relaxation remained. Islamic facilities is to ease the Muslim tourist to obey the Shariah rule during vacation. It used to guide Muslim’s behaviour. It could motivate Muslim to travel to affiliate with other Ummah and others who are different culture. Knowledge widening motivates Muslim to travel in order to achieve spiritual achievement by gaining experience and knowledge.

Travel motivation means the attributes that accumulated to determine a place as a travel destination. Travel motivation is an indicator of people’s readiness to travel and it is considered to be immediate antecedent of behaviour. It provide the evidence by describing the reasons or the motive of travel that concern to fulfil the tourist’s desire. Travel motivation occurs differently based on individual, mental, cultural and environmental. They also have different travel motives respectively either for Ummah’s unity, personal satisfaction or physical relaxation.

First of all, they should provides a lot  of job  opportunities for  local people  especially for those  who are  emphasizing  the Islamic  lifestyle.  For example  in hospitality,  this industry usually hardly hiring workers who are wearing hijab especially in the hotel industry.  Similarly, Islamic  tourism  has  triggered the  establishment  of  a  Syariah compliance hotel where workers are free to  wear hijab to serve their customers.  The relationship between hosts and guests is conceived primarily for the blessing of God and other aspects are secondary.

Furthermore, they need to contributes  less environmental impacts since  this product  usually related  to  the  place  with  controlled  activities  such  as  visitation  to  mosques, pertaining Halal food and high consideration to cleanliness since Islam taught is very particular about it..
The government needs to provide good facilities especially special seats for handicap person, pregnant women and senior citizens to carry out the ablution to ensure the comfortability of Muslim travelers to stay longer.

Besides that, Muslim travelers prefer to have a proper setup bidets or horse reel in the toilet to allow them comfortably clean themselves.  During Ramadhan, there are some travelers like to get experience on how to perform fasting in certain places. For example, in Malaysia there are plenty of Bazaar Ramadhan where local people selling various types of food for Iftar and Solat Terawikh during at night.  Muslim  tourists  tend  to  avoid  non-Halal  activities including  gambling,  prostitutions  and drinking alcohol. They prefer a safe recreation services and facilities which provide privacy for males and females.

In the conclusion, Islamic tourism is a new trend of tourism product which seen as a new contributor to Malaysia economic  especially in  the tourism industry.  The emergence of  Islamic tourism around the world has  triggered Malaysia to develop more strategies and plans to provide sufficient products and facilities to Muslim tourists. Malaysia has large opportunities to develop Islamic tourism due to Islam is the official religion of the country.

  Furthermore, Islamic tourism can be considered as sustainable tourism because it contributes positive impacts to environmental and social while generating income to local people, whereby mostly local people serve the tourists with Islamic value considerations.