The practice of Shariah-compliance hotel in Malaysia

Abstract

Over the past one decade, there has been an increasing focus on Islamic products and services research such as Halal food and Islamic banking. Halal revolution has created increasing awareness among Muslim to consume Halal product or Shariah-compliant services. In responding to this development, hotels created innovative services for Muslim guests called Shariah-compliant hotel (SCH). However, there is lack of research on the characteristics, and implementation of SCH has been carried out in the hotel industry. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand the practice of SCH in Malaysia. Diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory is utilised to investigate the issues of adoption and implementation of SCH. The preliminary study uses in-depth, open-ended interviews through purposive sampling. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and evaluated based on thematic analysis to understand the practice. The study found three issues in implementing SCH, such as the uncertainties of government regulation, difficulties to meet Halal standard, and absence of SCH standard. Along with this, two Malaysian Standards (MS1900:2005 &MS1500:2004) have been identified and strongly suggested to be used as a tool in the SCH practice.