Effective Resources to Mobilize Women Entrepreneurship: A Success Case Study of Family Tourism Businesses in Tioman Island, Malaysia

Abstract

Family-owned tourism businesses have unique resources to empower women in remote island destinations. There is limited literature that postulates the resource acquisition to mobilize women entrepreneurs within the family business study. Hence, this paper provided empirical knowledge on family tourism businesses methods to mobilize women entrepreneurs in rural Tioman Island in Malaysia. This study employed a qualitative case study approach by applying in-depth interviews for data collection. A successful case study was carried out in Tioman Island with 11 women entrepreneurs who have been actively involved in family tourism business operations since the 1980s. The resulting opportunities from the family organization setting, familiness nature and tourism industry as a setting modifier have greatly mobilized women into family tourism entrepreneurship. Thus, this case study provided comprehensive information on family tourism businesses’ implications on women entrepreneurs’ competitiveness in Tioman Island.

1. Introduction

The rural tourism development as drivers of economic and social revitalization for micro and small tourism and family-owned businesses has been intensively studied [1,2]. Various local family-owned businesses partake in niche tourism development opportunities, such as lodgings, eateries, travel and transportation, holidays, recreation, and entertainment due to the Malaysian tourism potential, especially in remote island destinations. A significant number of these family-owned tourism businesses are second or third generations, as the businesses have survived, thrived, and empowered family members and communities, particularly women [3]. Zapalska and Brozik’s [4] study postulated that family businesses are valuable for women to gain self-autonomy and increase their socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, women are less integrated into several industries, such as production, agriculture, and other male-dominated sectors and are referred to as “invisible” within their family businesses. Women are in charge of feminine tasks, such as customer care, human resources similar to cultural traditions related to house chores and family social life management. Conversely, women are essential stakeholders in the family-owned tourism business as the tourism industry requires highly labor-intensive work and involves feminine tasks. Family businesses can benefit from involving women (wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, female in-laws). The study proposed the following research question: “How do family tourism businesses mobilize local women into entrepreneur’s competency?”.

Women actively participated in leading and managing family-owned tourism businesses in Tioman Island. Tioman Island was gazetted as a marine park in 1998, thus shifting fisheries to tourism entrepreneurship. Approximately 80% of local families are involved in tourism activities as a primary livelihood source. The cultural and ecological diversity richness, white sand beaches, tropical weather, and luxurious underwater attractions enable Tioman Island to be a world-renowned tourist destination. The 1958 South Pacific movie depicted the beauty of Tioman Island. Accordingly, approximately 276,456 tourists visited Tioman Island in 2018, and this number is expected to grow to 555,986 by 2030 [5]. A majority of the tourism businesses commenced between the 1980s and 1990s (refer to Figure 1) and have sustained themselves with three to five family members involved in the business. In terms of business scale, primary accommodations businesses possess approximately 5 to 25 rooms and are supported by secondary services, such as laundry, eateries, diving, and souvenir shops [3]. Tourism offers low entry barriers that enable local family-owned tourism businesses easy entry into the market [2,3]. Nonetheless, men oversee the technical aspects, tours, and diving activities. Concurrently, women manage the household, tourist accommodations, and core businesses and multitask on secondary services, such as tourist laundry, restaurants, and souvenir shops. The embeddedness and family characteristics have increased the family-owned tourism business uniqueness, encouraging family members to enhance their entrepreneurial performances. Consequently, family relationships and values are inextricably correlated to family culture [6,7], essential in recognizing entrepreneurial opportunities.

Zellweger et al.’s [6] study highlighted a literature gap in the influence of family behavior. Similarly, Ratten et al.’s [8] study depicted that future research must investigate the correlation between family business and women’s entrepreneurial behaviors. Furthermore, the direct and indirect entrepreneurship influences must be investigated to obtain pertinent information on individual influences and environmental interactions [9]. This information will provide a valuable entrepreneurial perspective [9,10]. Various literature has elucidated women entrepreneurs’ responsibility in family businesses from a cultural, geographical, economic, and social perspective [10,11]. Consequently, this study investigated the role of family-owned tourism businesses in Tioman Island as a mobilization resource for women entrepreneurs. The background and family-owned business elements that influence women entrepreneurs’ performances in rural islands were identified and compiled into a comprehensive case study. Moreover, this study provides pertinent insights into the women’s entrepreneurial performances in Tioman Island to increase and sustain socioeconomic development. Resultantly, this study aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5, as tourism empowers women to improve social and well-being status [12].

2. Literature Review

2.1. Family Tourism Businesses and Characteristics of Their Effective Resources

Getz et al.’s [13] study highlighted family-owned business motivations. Firstly, culture, location, and economic development generate unique business opportunities, promote tourism activities, and are valuable tourism businesses assets. Resultantly, local families benefit from these tourism business activities. The study also elucidates that tourism provides an easy market entry for local families to utilize organizational resources with low skill requirements, flexible family needs, and a small mindset. Subsequently, family-owned tourism businesses become a socioeconomic resource investment for local rural development and a focal tourist attraction. Getz et al.’s [13] study associated family-owned tourism businesses with the family’s lifestyle and simple business management. These exclusive family business approaches differentiate family businesses from other businesses, a crucial family business heterogeneity foundation [14].

Peter and Kallmuenzer’s [15] study depicted that an exclusive entrepreneurial culture develops in family businesses, establishing transgenerational entrepreneurship as the leading rural tourism driver [16]. These unique entrepreneurial cultures develop innovation, autonomy, proactiveness, risk-taking, and competitive business aggressiveness. Furthermore, innovativeness and risk-taking in family-owned tourism businesses increase business sustainability, adapting to a rapidly changing environment, and product sharing within the same destinations [17]. Nonetheless, entrepreneurial behavior contributes to long-term financial performance and family business sustainability [2].

Non-economic resources, such as family business influence and attributes, can provide additional knowledge on family-owned businesses [18]. In addition, Zellweger et al.’s [6] study postulated that the family business approach creates unique and synergistic resources, which contributes to the family business or “familiness” value. Irava and Moore’s [11] study illustrated that familiness resources could be divided into three categories, which are human (reputation, experience, and skills), organizational (decision-making and learning), and process (relationship and networks) utilized for generational entrepreneurial learning. Therefore, these resources increase familial harmony and strength, improving business progress. Cannas et al.’s [19] study stated that to build the robust relationship among the entrepreneurs and as human beings, trust plays the pillar of members’ transactions. According to Ismail et al.’s [3] study, familiness enhances mutual understanding and creates a flexible and friendly environment that values workers’ welfare. Conversely, family-owned tourism businesses must utilize these resources to identify tourism entrepreneurial opportunities to ensure sustainable rural community development.

2.2. Family Tourism Businesses Impact on Women Entrepreneurs’ Behavior

It is vital to investigate limitedly studied women’s family-owned business capabilities and performances [20]. Currently, there is limited recognition for women in family businesses in developing and transitioning economies [21]. Family-owned tourism businesses possess various opportunities for women contrary to women’s invisibility stereotypes. In Tioman Island, the tourism industry and family-owned business development provide a realistic starting point for women tourism entrepreneurs. Moreover, family-owned tourism businesses can develop women entrepreneurs through sociocultural and lifestyle indulgence. For example, the “home maker” role is often associated with women, where women are expected to nurture and provide hospitality services. Consequently, more women manage “bed and breakfast” accommodations [2,22].

Family-run tourism businesses provide “feminine” job prospects within a home-based location (cleaning, bed making, and services) with low entry barriers. Home-grown entrepreneurship does not require high academic qualifications, promotes local entrepreneurial initiatives, and empowers women [23]. The tourism industry extends feminism and family roles that encourage women to behave authentically, a unique characteristic absent in other industries. Nonetheless, family-owned tourism business is defined as a feminism extension, intrinsic, fundamental, and unique involvement. Therefore, work–life balance is a gender prejudice issue women face in the family-owned tourism industry.

The stereotype of women’s involvement in family businesses is changing due to an active social role and tourism empowerment [24,25]. Various literature postulated that tourism developed new vocations, changed traditions and customs, and plays a major role in women’s prejudice removal [26,27,28]. Furthermore, family-owned tourism businesses produce a more constructive atmosphere for women leaders than non-family businesses. Women have family pride in the product or services and stakeholder relations. Women fortify their human and social resources through family support and actively participating in innovative family entrepreneurial opportunities [29]. These meaningful connections enable women leaders to engage in long-term and empathetic behaviors toward their employees and other community members.

2.3. Women Entrepreneurship in Tourism

The current phenomenon of women entrepreneurship is recognized as interlinked with tourism and has well-received scholars’ attention and interest, as women’s productive activities have been proven as an effort to empower them economically, enabling them to contribute more to national economic growth [30,31]. Tourism is regarded as a fertile ground for entrepreneurial initiatives due to its diverse, dynamic and flexible characteristic [31]. Hence, in many occasions, women prefer flexibility to balance work and household management. These same factors have repeatedly led to tourism entrepreneurship being premised on its potential to empower women [32,33]. Further, some inherent characteristics of women entrepreneurs are taking the advantages of the opportunity to create values in the economic development. For instance, Martinez-Caparros [32] and Cole [34] have recently notified that rhetoric positioning tourism as empowering for women is consistently overstated and has thus called for the need to reframe conceptualization of tourism entrepreneurship for women beyond its artificial economic, masculinist framings beyond normative globalized.

However, rising women entrepreneurs in society depends largely on economic, social, religious, cultural and psychological factors prevailing in their surrounding communities. In particular, social and cultural challenges are two critical barriers experienced by women, causing less women participation in entrepreneurship activities. Ribeiro et al. [27] found that women may have the entrepreneurial ability, but they may be challenged by negative sociocultural challenges and societal expectations that prevent them from being independent in entrepreneurship resource exploitation. Differently to Kimbu et al.’s [35] notion in a resources-scarce context, women entrepreneurs are mostly and easily dependent from the established social ties for the purpose of exploiting the resources to enhancing women entrepreneurs’ capacity and capabilities, thereby improving the resilience of their tourism businesses. Precisely, it showed that overlooking tourism entrepreneurship access to alternative resources might prevent researchers from recognizing significant patterns and lessons to support women entrepreneurs in tourism businesses, particularly small–medium family tourism businesses which make up a major composition in all tourism businesses around the world.

In Malaysia’s circumstance, women entrepreneurs have a crucial role in assisting Malaysia’s vision of becoming a well-developed country with a competitive, dynamic and robust economy [36]. Tourism and entrepreneurship are important to the growth of Malaysia’s economy. The importance had also been recognized by the Malaysian Government, by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (MWFCD), to empower women to increase their contribution in the socioeconomy. Giving importance to these emerging phenomena of women entrepreneurship in tourism, this focusses on women entrepreneurs in a special case study of family tourism business settings in Malaysia as the development of mobilizing their easy access into entrepreneurship.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research Design

This study employed a qualitative case study in rural Tioman Island to explore how family tourism businesses influence local women’s entrepreneurial behavior. A qualitative method was utilized to comprehend the exploratory nature of family tourism businesses with direct subject interaction [37,38], to avoid potential interview process bias [39]. The case study informants were selected through the snowballing technique that determined specific informant criteria based on the registered tourism business list. Moreover, only family-owned tourism businesses involving women with more than 10 years of management experience were sampled (refer to

Table 1. Attributes of women entrepreneurs in family tourism business: Tioman Island, Malaysia.

No.	Case Study Location	Age	Status	Education	Family Business					Tourism
					Main Business	Scale	Year	Generation	Position	Others Services	Tourism Market
1	Ayer Batang	20s	− Daughter − Married	Local university	Accommodation	6	1980s	2	Manager	− food stall	− Domestic & Foreign tourist − Family Day program
2	Ayer Batang	30s	− Daughter − Married	College	Accommodation	25	1980s	2	Manager	− restaurant, conference room, diving shop	− Domestic & Foreign tourist − Family Day program
3	Ayer Batang	50s	− Wife − Married	High school	Accommodation	15	1990s	2	Manager	− restaurant	− Domestic & Foreign tourist − Family Day program
4	Ayer Batang	50s	− Wife − Married	High school	Accommodation	10	1980s	1	Manager	− laundry, − restaurant, − diving shop	− Domestic & Foreign tourist − Family Day program
5	Salang	40s	− Daughter − Married	High School	Accommodation	20	1980s	2	Manager	− restaurant, meeting room	− Domestic & foreign tourist − Family day program − Business seminar − Edu camp
6	Salang	30s	− Daughter − Married	College	Accommodation	8	1990s	2	Manager	− outdoor activity	− Domestic & foreign tourist
7	Salang	40s	− Sister − Married	High school	Accommodation	20	1980s	2	Manager	− restaurant, diving & souvenir shop, grocery, − laundry, meeting room	− Domestic & foreign tourist − Family day program − Edu camp program − Business seminar
8	Salang	40s	− Wife − Married	High school	Accommodation	8	1990s	1	Manager	− laundry	− Long stay foreign tourist
9	Tekek	40s	− Daughter − Married	Overseas university	Accommodation	10	2000s	1	Manager	− restaurant	− Domestic & foreign tourist − Family day program − Business staycation
10	Tekek	30s	− Daughter − Married	High school	Accommodation	6	1980s	1	Manager	− restaurant	− Domestic & foreign tourist − Family day program
11	Tekek	30s	− Daughter − Married	High school	Accommodation	10	1980s	2	Manager	− restaurant, meeting room	− Domestic & foreign tourist − Family day program

). The selected entrepreneurs participated voluntarily and introduced other reliable potential informants.

3.2. Data Collection and Analysis

This study engaged in-depth and semi-structured interviews to comprehend the local women’s entrepreneurial behavior in family-owned tourism businesses (refer to Appendix A). This allows researchers to explore more deeply when additional information is considered important for research. The interviews were executed from November 2020 to April 2021 with 11 women leaders who are actively involved in their family-owned tourism businesses. The interview process was conducted for approximately 30 to 45 min individually at the business location. The informant’s community and business were observed to obtain a realistic understanding of their local realities. The interviews investigated women’s attributes in the family tourism business, such as personal background and their business development in the past year. Several women’s entrepreneurial behavior factors, such as setting modifier factor and familiness resources [6,11], were examined based on the established research guidelines adapted from Getz et al.’s [13] study.

The interviews were recorded and transcribed into text documents with the informant’s consent. All the interview transcript data were analyzed using thematic analysis that identified themes based on data relationships, patterns and themes, and grouping [40]. The thematic analysis was applied to synthesize rich data and is widely utilized in qualitative analysis. Braun and Clarke’s [40] study postulated that thematic investigation could determine vital information to answer research objectives based on a patterned response and data significance. Subsequently, related abstract data were collectively grouped to ensure data accuracy. As a result, themes that are able to provide understanding for the aspect that becomes a major concern to the aim of the research were identified. In this case, these emerging themes were clustered or categorized into several main headings according to the priorities addressed by the respondents on each case. Hence, the assessment and comparison of the real-case situation themes with the existing literature were examined.

4. Findings and Discussion

Tourism development in Tioman Island in the recent decade has sustained the economic activities and empowered local communities to advance from fishing to tourism entrepreneurship. Women of Tioman Island are essential in operating and managing family-owned tourism businesses. They host tourists and engage in extended household activities (housekeeping, front desk service, laundry, restaurant, customer service) with the help of the other family members for technical and island tour aspects. Moreover, several women aid busy homemakers managing the family tourism business during the peak season. The women’s entrepreneurial behavior influences through family-owned tourism businesses have led to sustainable local economic and tourism development. The tourism industry, familiness resources, and family business organizational characteristics generated excellent women’s entrepreneurial performance (refer to

Table 2. Qualitative research questions and emerging themes.

Research Question	Category	Themes
How do family tourism businesses mobilize and support local women into entrepreneur’s competency?	Proactive response to setting modifier	a. Niche opportunities
		b. Family asset
		c. Government provision
		d. Adaptability
		e. Talents
	Friendly working platform	a. Balanced lifestyle
		b. Flexibility
		c. Security
		d. Sociable environment
		e. Ease of access
	Values and culture	a. Inheritance
		b. Belief
		c. Trust and support
		d. Responsibility
		e. Accreditation

). The existing tourism industry development and family-owned tourism businesses in Tioman Island empower women entrepreneurs.

4.1. Tourism Industry Setting and Women’s Proactive Response

The Tioman Island tourism industry development since the 1980s has generated various tourism niche opportunities for local women. This explanation is based on an informant’s expressions given below:

“The Tioman Island tourism development and beautiful landscape affect the local socio-economic status.”

The mainstream economic change towards tourism has established numerous small-scale, unofficial businesses. The tourism industry has attracted local families to utilize their family assets such as lands, to develop tourism businesses that provide essential services that cater to high tourist demands. A husband and wife provided basic tourist accommodations on their land located along the desirable sandy beach. The informant’s expression is given below:

“Tourists started to recognize Tioman in the early 1980s through an old movie that highlighted the island beauty. Tourists started to visit, but there was an accommodation and basic needs problem. My parents were the first in the village to provide a place for them and future tourists.”

Several families started investing in the tourism business by obtaining loans offered by authorities as initial capital. The informant’s expression is given below:

“I was involved in this chalet business with my husband to support the high tourist demand through capital obtained from the government.”

Women who do not possess specialized business skills and tourism knowledge can leverage existing skills to participate in the highly labor-intensive and ease of entry tourism industry. This statement is corroborated by an informant below:

“I had no basic business knowledge, so I had to take the initiative to gain experience from my family and develop these skills.”

Women are expected to develop psychological and behavioral characteristics that enable holistic business perspectives [41]. Consequently, adapting to the immediate environment has increased women’s business involvement. This explanation is based on informants’ expressions given below:

“Tourism enables local women, including me, to leverage their skill capabilities. We need to take risks as long as we can positively respond to it.”

“I was not good in this field, but I tried to commit and learn something from these business experiences.”

The low tourism industry entry barriers condition in Tioman Island have favored local women entrepreneurs and do not require high qualifications, skills, and business experiences. These low entry barriers empower local women to positively adapt and contribute to the local economic activities and family survival.

4.2. Family Tourism Businesses as Women-Friendly Working Platform

The contextual embeddedness within family-owned tourism businesses has encouraged women’s involvement in the tourism industry. This notion is corroborated by an informant’s statement given below:

“We were trained since we were young. I was 10 years old when I started to help my mother to manage the chalet.”

“I am still in the same environment since childhood. I learned from experience and observing my parent’s work. I am currently taking over under my father’s supervision because he is old.”

Managing a family-owned tourism business and being a mother, wife, or daughter is challenging. Women must multitask in the family tourism business industry, adding to their distinctiveness. This description is based on an informant’s expressions given below:

“I have to manage my time to ensure efficient time allocation at home and the business. It is manageable if you can divide your time appropriately.”

Informants emphasized that flexibility is vital to balance work and other responsibilities. This explanation is based on informants’ expressions given below:

“It was challenging to live a double life, dividing myself between family and business. There is no problem possessing multiple roles in the family business if we can regulate our time to ensure no hassle or stress.”

Costa et al.’s [42] study highlighted that flexibility is vital for women tourism entrepreneurs. Therefore, women’s desire for work–life balance promotes their involvement in the tourism industry over other career opportunities. Nonetheless, the welcoming working landscape due to enhanced mutual understanding in the family tourism business culture creates a tolerant environment for women who balance their home and business. The informant’s expression is given below:

“This is my home and workplace. I do not have to travel back and forth as everything is here. My children are familiar with this situation and understand this environment.”

Women must leverage the easy career access to management positions in the family-owned tourism business. This description is based on an informant’s expressions given below:

“Most women prefer to work in family enterprises than work outside. Currently, these women succeed the enterprises from their parents.”

Women entrepreneurs have obtained informal lifestyle experiences through family-owned tourism businesses without formal education. Additionally, informal learning embeddedness originates from family traditions and norms. Women must take risks and engage in different tourism business activities to ensure survival after their husband’s death. These statements are derived from the informant’s statements given below:

“I learned all the business process from informal experiences within the business and officially outside the business.”

“This is my home, and my children stay with me. I am bravely handling the business alone that I learnt from my husband when he was still alive. He was my strength.”

Women involved in the family tourism businesses for more than 20 years initiate innovative thinking and risk-taking to ensure business growth and continuity. Furthermore, women have the authority to implement business strategy ideas and make decisions. This explanation is based on the informant’s expressions given below:

“Our chalet is different from others as I always modify it according to the current trends.”

“Women are more capable of understanding customer needs.”

Customer satisfaction is vital to obtain recognition.

“Foreigners enjoy staying here although my chalet is far from the beach, as I have great hospitality, easy to communicate with, and my chalet has a different ambience.”

Women have committed to upgrading communication skills and learning different cultures and languages to serve consumers. This statement is derived from an informant’s comment displayed below:

“Communication skill is important. I can understand customers’ problems and needs by learning foreign languages even though I am not good. They are so happy if we can understand them.”

Women must maintain and build excellent network and host–guest relationships to maintain their business reputation and ensure customer retention.

“Word of mouth is a free advertising tool as first-time visitors will consult their friends for accommodation recommendations.”

Women who possess good conversation skills can maintain personal consumer relationships. These positive characteristics will assist women in expressing confidence, individuality, and forming personal and business relationships.

4.3. Family Values and Cultures Influence Women

The familiness attributes in family-owned businesses emphasize behavioral and resource endowment and usage, reflecting a synergistic resource. These resources consist of family values (family dynamic transition), trust and support, a sense of belonging, and family teamwork and recognition. Resultantly, family transition through marriage encourages new women entrepreneurs. This statement is based on an informant’s comment given below:

“My husband originates from Tioman Island, and I followed him here 20 years ago when we got married. We started this business together.”

Women give birth to future family-owned tourism business employees.

“My parents used to manage this family business. Currently, I am the chalet manager.”

Below is an expression by an informant who experienced her husband’s death:

“Since my husband’s death, I felt responsible for continuing this business and taking part in all business aspects.”

Retirement of predecessors creates an immediate successor change. The informant’s comment is given below:

“My mother gives me her full support. I was not working here previously. Nonetheless, I came back to manage my family business due to certain circumstances. I am honored that my mother believes in me.”

Husbands have more advantages as family business owners. Nonetheless, his trust and support ensure that his wife and daughter play an active role in tourist management. An informant’s statement is provided below:

“My father started this chalet business. Since I was a child, I was informally involved. Now, I am the manager under my father’s guidance.”

Family-owned businesses possess a sense of belonging that affects businesses. Family members are cohesive and commit themselves to the business. Zellweger et al.’s [6] study elucidated that shared responsibility contributes to family-owned business success. This notion is corroborated by an informant’s statement given below:

“I am involved in all business aspects as it is my responsibility to serve my family.”

The total commitment exhibited by women entrepreneurs ensures that their families and children are happy.

“I work hard and enjoy treating chalet guests like family. I enjoy communicating with the guest, making them feel welcomed. They will revisit just like my other repeated customers if they like my service. I feel satisfied.”

The informants accentuate that business supervision assisted them in building self-esteem and community respect and recognition.

4.4. Discussion

A perspective of channeling women into tourism entrepreneurship should be considered as a crucial factor of sustainable development stand-up. It was discovered within the family tourism businesses case study that can facilitate and empower women to advance their personal growth and business autonomy by utilizing the accessible resources, thereby enhancing their capacity and capabilities. The existence of sustainable development is influenced when women have gained a superior life control and financial independence despite their minimal education by the resource acquisition through family-owned tourism businesses. A similar notion to several past studies [15,35,43] mentioned that resources and surrounding prospects including family-based entrepreneurial culture play an essential role in creating and channeling women into economic and social outcomes, as well contribute to the development of the tourism industry. This study also found that the low entry barrier within the tourism industry setting has been established as an easy entry for women entrepreneurs into tourism entrepreneurship; the study found evidence that the family-owned businesses in Tioman Island have successfully been sustained since the start-up phases in the 1980s and have continued until present, despite the various difficulties and economic downturn.

Although, the family-owned tourism businesses have experienced several fluctuations due to the death, health and wealth of the family business successor, which enabled and opened the door for women to possess the business ownership. Zahra et al.’s [44] study correspondingly emphasized the positive connection between family and business subsystems where familiness values can encourage an active business contribution. Consequently, these family business variances have prompted women to exploit their skills and opportunities in the immediate environment and are less associated with gender stereotypes and will continue to sustain and grow [45]. The proactive response from women in family tourism businesses positively influences the business, and it is a socially acceptable platform for women to actively participate in the local economy through their extensions of a traditional gender role by opposing gender stereotype challenges. Thus, women’s entrepreneurial experiences in family-owned tourism businesses accentuate by integrating the extended family roles into specialized operational dimensions that cater to global market demand. This was achieved by demonstrating women’s excellent emotional attachment and communication skills, showing the ability to develop ties at business networks, and hence the ability to gain and sustain the business growth. This study being evident with the extension of Irava and Moore’s [11] study, which illustrated that familiness resources can be utilized for entrepreneurial learning, Zellweger et al. ‘s [6] study postulated that the family business approach creates unique and synergistic resources that contribute to family business value. Kimbu et al.’s [35] study depicted that the purpose of exploiting the resources influences the practical implications into sustainable human capital management by leveraging women’s capacity and capabilities, thereby potentially improving the social ties network and resilience of their family tourism businesses.

Additionally, the overall themes identified provide a valuable contribution to strengthening the capacity of women’s community in rural tourism destinations to sustain the provision of and access to finance, leverage the capacity and skills development, and trust-building, leading to increased legitimization of women’s entrepreneurial initiatives. Cannas et al. [19] stated that the role of social values including trust plays the pillar of members’ transactions and key factors for building sustainable tourism management practices able to generate sustainable benefit to all stakeholders and as human beings. These findings also support Tajeddini et al.’s [26] study in Bali, Indonesia, that might be perceived in the long-term solution for the challenging issues of women entrepreneurs in order to ensure sustainable development within tourism industry. Therefore, it should highlight the importance of family ownership, collective values and proactive response (adaptability) and will assist women beyond the normative globalized, thereby premising them into the advantage of the opportunity to give them the willpower and determination in creating values in the economic development as an entrepreneur.

5. Conclusions

The role of family-owned businesses in empowering women to gain greater autonomy and financial independence has been extensively studied. This study postulated that family-owned tourism businesses positively influenced women entrepreneurs, which are unique and absent in other industries. The Tioman Island tourism industry setting (niche opportunities as a well-known tourist island, readiness to land provision as a family asset for tourism business, government provision by capital support, adaptability to immediate environment as tourism are highly labor intensive and leverage women talents by extension housework) provided valuable opportunities for women’s responses in rural island destinations to be family-owned tourism business entrepreneurs. Hence, the organizational characteristics such as a friendly working platform (job security, easy career access, balanced lifestyle, flexibility, sociable environment in forming personal and business relationships) enable women to effectively integrate family and the tourism business through familiness (inheritance by family transition, belief, trust and support, responsibility and accreditation). The familiness nature within the family-owned tourism business positively promotes women tourism entrepreneurs. Hence, this study identified that family tourism business resource mobilization also affects women entrepreneurs’ personality, behavior, and entrepreneurial orientation, thus influencing the business network and reputation. Nevertheless, an increase in entrepreneurial attitudes and leadership capabilities provides financial and non-financial value to their family business sustainability and develops Tioman Island’s resiliency.

Therefore, this study makes several contributions in demonstrating that the advantage of family tourism businesses organization establishing strong resource ties to women entrepreneurship with accessing and acquiring resources from family business, tourism entrepreneurship and familiness values are important means contributes to firm performance and sustainable development. In other words, this study’s findings confirm previous research, which shows that family businesses and the tourism industry generally contribute to tourism firms’ abilities to cultivate resource acquisition and also maximizes women entrepreneurship performance benefits. By looking into practical implication, policymakers and family business practitioners must provide additional perspectives to comprehend further the women entrepreneurs’ role in Malaysian family-owned tourism businesses. Accordingly, this study provided pertinent information on altering gender roles in the tourism industry. The study recommends that Tioman Island women entrepreneurs improve their professional knowledge to sustain their family-owned business. Local authorities and NGOs should organize tourism management courses to improve women entrepreneurs’ local and international tourism markets, competitors, globalization, and integration data. Local Tioman Island authorities and NGOs can utilize this information to support and enhance women entrepreneurs’ abilities as business leaders to attain sustainable rural socioeconomic development.

Lastly, this study has several limitations that open avenues for further research. The findings are context-specific and relate to sample size, because our focus was women entrepreneurs operating in the tourism industry emerging destinations of a Malaysian island destination, namely, Tioman Island. This may limit the generalizability of our findings to other contexts and cultures, beyond an island destination in particular and Malaysia as a whole. Future studies should replicate and expand our study to other contexts, as island tourist destinations in different family business settings. Additionally, how women can contribute to impartial and culturally appropriate economic activities must be investigated. Therefore, this study provides a valuable framework for future research on women’s entrepreneurial behavior and the family business performance implications.