Tuesday, 1 October 2019

reflective journal


article



Current Trends and Future Outlook for Global Tourism and Hospitality
5.3.2 Concept of Travel and Tourism from Islamic Perspective
          TRAVEL & TOURISM
·        The definition of ‘tourist’ and ‘Muslim tourist’ would be different due to the activities, experiences, motivations, demands and the concept of its segment.  Generally, Muslim traveller travel in order to visit friends and relatives or other purposes with full appreciation of the greatness creation of God’s world.
·        Islam encouraged all Muslims to travel around the world. Tourism is one of the main generating factors to Malaysian economic growth which has contributed large amount of income to the country and in principle; Islam is totally accepting of business in tourism as defined the Holy Koran and the Hadiths.
·        Islamic tourism industry shows a positive growth and continues to be one of the top contributors in the service sector to the national economy.

ISLAMIC TOURISM
·        Islamic tourism is principally a different ‘touristic’ version of pilgrimage that unifies religious and leisure tourism which proposed as an alternative to the hedonic conceptualization of mass tourism. Muslims are encouraged to practice such type of tourism activities for historical, social and cultural encounters, to gain knowledge, to associate with others, to spread God’s word and to enjoy and appreciate God’s creations.
·        According to the Holy Qur’an there are thirteen (13) verses that encouraged people to travel or ziarah places of attractions as stipulated in (Al-Imran:137; Al- An‟am:11; Yusof:109; Al-Nahal:36; Al-Hajj:46; An-Naml:69; Al-Ankabut:20; Ar- Rum:9,42; Fatir:44; Ghafir:21,82; Muhammad:10). Through these Qur’anic verses Allah (SWT) calls us to travel different countries of this globe to visit the historical places with having intense intention to know the consequent of previous generations.



POSITIVE IMPACT OF ISLAMIC TOURISM
1.   Economy
·        Tourism is seen as a platform to foster closer cooperation between government institutions around the world. It can also enhance tourism activities among Muslims by contributing to the creation of new tourism product destinations.
·        Islamic tourism 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.
2.   Politic
·        The development of Islamic tourism denotes that Malaysia is a Muslim country which has put a lot of efforts to develop Islamic tourism products including new Islamic theme attractions such an Islamic Civilization Park (TTI).
·        To balance the needs and demands of mass tourists, Malaysia developed the lavishness tourism products for them. In this context, it indicates that politics in Malaysia have emphasized high tolerance and consideration to balance the mass tourism and Islamic tourism to its tourists.



NEGATIVE IMPACT OF ISLAMIC TOURISM
1.   Environment
·        Islamic tourism 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. Since the activities of Islamic tourism consist the appreciation of God’s creations, less vandalism will happen to the environment due to the belief that the environment is also the creatures of God that need to be conserved and preserved.
SUGGESTION
1.   Set Islamic tourism targets as part of national tourism growth targets.
2.   Identify and facilitate Islamic tourism marketing strategy development for the industry.

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