Factors influencing muslim tourist satisfaction toward halal tourism industry: A case study in Shah Alam, Selangor

The growing number of Muslim tourists in the world has urged many destinations to embrace the concept of Islamic tourism. Malaysia as an Islamic country has been serious on establishing a halal hub for tourism products. This research focuses on the level of satisfaction among Muslim tourist towards halal tourism industry. It is intended to measure the factor that might affect the satisfaction of the Muslim tourist which includes the quality value, price value, emotional value, social value, Islamic attributes value and Muslim-friendly facilities towards halal tourism industry and travel agency. This study examines the relationships between the satisfactions with all the mentioned factors earlier. A proposed theoretical framework has been developed in this study in order to illustrate the whole research area. Hypothesized relationships are tested using survey responses from a sample of 230 respondents which consist of the Muslim tourists who were the customer from selected Muslim-friendly travel agency in Shah Alam. Results revealed a positive relationship between all the factor and the Muslim tourists satisfaction. The results reported in this research are useful to both industry and academics by providing relevant exploratory data about the satisfaction. The results should be able to recommend some suggestion on how to improve the satisfaction among the Muslim tourists. The issue of the pricing of travel packages must be spoken critically by the industry players, government as well as academician in order to obtain sustainable growth and to realize Malaysia as a halal tourism hub.