An Emergent of Islamic Tourism and Hotel: A Readiness, Opportunity and Obstacle To Be Solved; An analysis of Hoteliers’ Perspective

Abstract

Islam as a lifestyle is, no doubt becomes an obligatory religious requirement of all Muslims. The influence of Islamic principles extends to not only the Muslims country’s administration, social and political, but it also indirectly affects recreation and travel policy. Religion, thus influences the operation of tourism policy-making as well as destination setting and development. Enormous literature was found in discussing the opportunity and needs in developing Islamic hotel, particularly in Islamic countries like Malaysia. However, very few were found on what response it would be from the industry players as well as the government stand and its readiness in term of legislative work towards such implementation. Hence, this study aims to explore the view of hotel industry players on the setting up of Islamic hotel and to relay the real situations of how the hoteliers see the prospect of this industry. To make it more reliable, an analysis towards the legislative effort by the government authorities towards this setting was made as these two groups are the anchors in realising the establishment of Islamic hotel brands. This study embarks into a doctrinal and qualitative research which involve an exploratory of some related regulations and policies as well as a semi-structured and interview in-depth with hotel industry players. Three reputable hotels were chosen to share their view, respectively. The findings of this research positively showed hoteliers readiness towards this current highlighted idea and predicted a future bright of this industry. However, a little doubt arises as to the limited effort of government in upholding Islamic tourism industry generally and Islamic hotel mainly. It is hoped that this paper may serve as an eye-opener to tourism stakeholders principally on a government side for a much more effort to be done in realising the vision of being a world leader in Halal hub industry.