Assessment of the inclusion of Muslim friendly travel package by outbound tour agency in Johor Bahru

Abstract

Muslim Friendly travel package widely sell in the market by both Muslim-owned and non-Muslim owned travel agencies. Hence, this research aim to assess the inclusion of the Muslim Friendly travel package by outbound tour agency in Johor Bahru based on four main objectives: (i) to assess the level of understanding about Muslim Friendly Tourism and facilities among tour agency during creating outbound tour package; (ii) to identify the elements that can be categorized as Muslim Friendly facilities during designing of the outbound tour package; (iii) to study the motivation of travel agency in promoting Muslim outbound tour package; and (iv) to examine the challenges that faced by tour agency to design and promote Muslim Friendly outbound packages. By applying qualitative method of in-depth interview and conversations within eight travel agencies who actively promoting Muslim Friendly package and two travel agencies that are not promoting Muslim Friendly package in Johor Bahru, it would gain a comprehensive understanding of Muslim Friendly tourism, the development of the package, the motivation of promoting Muslim Friendly package as well as the challenges while developing the package. The results shows that the travel agencies who promoting the Muslim Friendly package are understand the basic requirements to cater Muslim travellers which are Halal foods, prayer facilities and no non-Halal activities. Besides, the motivation and challenges of promoting Muslim package also been assessed in order to identify the difference of understanding between Muslim–owned agencies and non-Muslim-owned agencies. Therefore, this study is beneficial to all tourism stakeholders especially travel agencies to identify the inclusion of a Muslim Friendly tour package.