The hotel owners’ and top managements’ behavioural intention: The adoption of islamic quality standard for hotels

Islamic hotel development is reported as one of the attractive segments in Malaysia's tourism development nowadays. However, most of the hotel operators claimed that they are confused with the standard of the Islamic Hotel concept and there is still a lack of studies on the hotel operators’ opinions and attitudes towards the Islamic hotel concept and its standard. With the emergence of the Islamic Quality Standard for Hotels (IQS for Hotels), there are possibilities for the owners and top management to adopt the standard. This study aims to examine the relationship between attitude towards behaviour, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and behavioural intention to adopt IQS for Hotels using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). This study also examines the role of religion and the length of working experience as the moderating variable. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to investigate the relationship between three considerations in TPB in relation to the owners and top management’s behavioural intention to adopt IQS for Hotels. Interview protocol and questionnaires were used to obtain data from 87 owners and the top management. This study found that all three independent variables significantly influence the hotel owners’ and the top management’s intention to adopt IQS for Hotels. This study found that the three variables significantly influence the intention of hotel owners and top management to accept the use of IQS for hotels. Other important parties such as friends and family who are important to the owners and top management also help them to decide the adoption of IQS for Hotels at their respective organizations. Religion and length of working experience have been reported to be insignificant moderators because as a profit-oriented organization, business objectives are the most important factor to be considered. Academically, this study contributes to knowledge regarding the owners and top management’s behavioural intention to adopt the policy, standards and practices of IQS for Hotels. In addition, it also provides knowledge about Islamic hotel standards to the hotel operators.