Managing Modern Muslim Travellers: Emerging Trends and Issues for Islamic Tourism Destinations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Dear authors, kind regards.

Thank you very much for allowing me to evaluate your paper entitled Managing Modern Muslim travellers: Emerging Trends, Issues and Future Agenda for Muslim-friendly destinations.

 

It presents some opportunities for improvement, for consideration for publication.

 

The instruction lacks significant sections such as the research question and the gap it addresses, and it is also recommended that a paragraph comment on the structure be included.

 

The revision of the theoretical basis should be improved, and more updated research should be sought to support this section in a theoretical way. 

 

The methodology is clear, but what is not clear is the method used. This section should be improved by explaining in detail the steps and procedures and the tools used.

 

The work presents a yellow shading that does not differentiate what is the reason why the manuscript is in this state?

 

I find the results interesting, and from what I can see the method used was grounded theory, although I would like to know what were the actions that led to this (Coding, triangulation, guiding categories and finally emerging categories).

 

The manuscript lacks a discussion section, which confronts and compares the findings in the present research with others.

 

The conclusion needs to be improved.

 

I wish you all the best with your manuscript. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Re: Manuscript ID: tourismhosp-2017542

Title: Managing Modern Muslim travellers: Emerging Trends, Issues and Future Agenda for Muslim-friendly destinations

 

We want to thank you for the additional reviewer comments and the opportunity to resubmit a revised copy of this manuscript. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the reviewers for the positive feedback and helpful comments for correction or modification.

 

The manuscript has been revised to address the reviewer's comments, which are appended alongside our responses to this letter. For your information, the authors agreed that the paper cited additional recent studies as suggested by the reviewer in the interests of completeness.

 

We believe the revision resulted in an improved manuscript, which you will find uploaded alongside this document.

 

We hope the revised manuscript is accepted for publication in your journal.

 

Thank you.

                                                                                                                                   

 

Feedback to Reviewer 1 comments

 

1. Thank you very much for allowing me to evaluate your paper entitled Managing Modern Muslim travellers: Emerging Trends, Issues and Future Agenda for Muslim-friendly destinations. It presents some opportunities for improvement, for consideration for publication.

Thank you for your acknowledgement

 

2. The instruction lacks significant sections such as the research question and the gap it addresses, and it is also recommended that a paragraph comment on the structure be included.

We added the study gap and study aim in the first paragraph

 

3. The revision of the theoretical basis should be improved, and more updated research should be sought to support this section in a theoretical way. 

To improve the theoretical basis, we added new literature as below:

1. Jafari, A. (2021). The performativity and institutionality of'Islamicness' in'Islamic tourism': defining a field and proposing a research agenda. Journal of Islamic Tourism, 1(1), 5-21.
2. Adel, A. M., Dai, X., Yan, C., & Roshdy, R. S. (2021). Halal strategies on official government tourism websites: An extension and validation study. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 21(2), 229-244.
3. Dabphet, S. (2021). Managing Islamic attributes through the satisfaction of Muslim tourists in a non-Muslim country. International Journal of Tourism Cities, 7(1), 237-254. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-06-2020-0124
4. Berakon, I., Wibowo, M. G., Nurdany, A., & Aji, H. M. (2021). An expansion of the technology acceptance model applied to the halal tourism sector. Journal of Islamic Marketing. (Earlycite) https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-03-2021-0064
5. Battour, M., Mady, K., Salaheldeen, M., Elsotouhy, M., Elbendary, I. and Boğan, E. (2022). AI-enabled technologies to assist Muslim tourists in Halal-friendly tourism. Journal of Islamic Marketing. (Earlycite). https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-01-2022-0001
6. Sofyan, A.S., Abror, A., Putra, T.W., Muslihati, M., Sofyan, S., Sirajuddin, S., Katman, M.N. and Darussalam, A.Z. (2021). Crisis and disaster management for halal tourism: a systematic review. Tourism Review, 77(1), 129-145.

 

4. The methodology is clear, but what is not clear is the method used. This section should be improved by explaining in detail the steps and procedures and the tools used.

The methodology has been extended. We discussed thoroughly the methods and procedures used.

 

5. The work presents a yellow shading that does not differentiate what is the reason why the manuscript is in this state?

It was to highlight the changes made during the desktop review stage.

 

6. I find the results interesting, and from what I can see the method used was grounded theory, although I would like to know what were the actions that led to this (Coding, triangulation, guiding categories and finally emerging categories).

We acknowledge the limited information we offered in the initial paper. Hence, we added new information related to the reviewer's suggestions in the method section: We identified a total of 78 initial codes that summarised the data. This process of data analysis led to axial coding of the data to describe the informant’ views of the Islamic tourism context more extensively. Three subthemes were identified (trends, emerging issues and future agendas), and these were subsequently categorised into two sub-themes: (1) In-consistency of Islamic tourism branding; (2) Lack of Muslim-based products and services, and; (3) governance issues. Interpretive codes are created and wherever possible, verbatim quotes are used to elaborate the input from the participants.

 

 

7. The manuscript lacks a discussion section, which confronts and compares the findings in the present research with others. The conclusion needs to be improved. I wish you all the best with your manuscript. 

Thank you for your suggestion. The conclusion section has been extended as proposed by the reviewer

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The topic is relevant to the modern tourism scene, and this note may serve as a reminder for the issues that need to be addressed with regard to tourism from Muslim countries. 

My suggestions for improvement are:

1.     Be more specific regarding the uniqueness of Muslim tourism. You identified is as “religion and religiousness” in the opening para, but there are other national groups that can be described the same way. What is “religiousness”? Is it the same as spirituality or religiosity?

2.     I found that while the authors claim that there is a lot of different meanings that people put in the terms Halal hospitality, Islamic tourism, Muslim tourism, Muslim-friendly services, etc., the paper does not leave the reader with the feeling that those terms have been clarified.

3.     I suggest the authors align better what they declare to achieve in Abstract with what has been put in the Intro, in the main body (the way the study unfolds), and in Conclusion.

4.     As a reviewer, I would like to get an idea how the questions for the interviews were phrased.  

5.     I would suggest the authors formulate more explicitly the novelty points of their study. For example, the contrast between more religious tourists and the younger generation of [more secular?] Muslims? Can specific recommendation be formulated?

6.     Overall, I would say that the authors should consider revising – wherever possible -  their writing toward a more specific, practical recommendations and limit the use of generic, already known ones.

I am wishing the authors success with this piece!  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Re: Manuscript ID: tourismhosp-2017542

Title: Managing Modern Muslim travellers: Emerging Trends, Issues and Future Agenda for Muslim-friendly destinations

 

We want to thank you for the additional reviewer comments and the opportunity to resubmit a revised copy of this manuscript. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the reviewers for the positive feedback and helpful comments for correction or modification.

 

The manuscript has been revised to address the reviewer's comments, which are appended alongside our responses to this letter. For your information, the authors agreed that the paper cited additional recent studies as suggested by the reviewer in the interests of completeness.

 

We believe the revision resulted in an improved manuscript, which you will find uploaded alongside this document.

 

We hope the revised manuscript is accepted for publication in your journal.

 

Thank you.

                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

Feedback to Reviewer 2 comments

 

1. The topic is relevant to the modern tourism scene, and this note may serve as a reminder for the issues that need to be addressed with regard to tourism from Muslim countries. 

Thank you

 

2. Be more specific regarding the uniqueness of Muslim tourism. You identified is as “religion and religiousness” in the opening para, but there are other national groups that can be described the same way. What is “religiousness”? Is it the same as spirituality or religiosity?

Thank you for highlighting this concern. The extant literature does not directly classify religious tourists and pilgrims as spiritual tourists. Still, some authors have suggested that both religious tourism and pilgrimage are subsets of the broader category of spiritual tourism. We expanded the Introduction section by discussing the concept of religion and religiousness within the context of Muslim travellers. We added: The intersections between Islam and tourism have become of great interest to destination managers and tourism scholars. Notably, Islamic tourism is unique as it incorporates the concepts of religion and religiousness, reflecting the specific Muslim travellers' preferences. Notably, their travel consumption differed from non-Muslim’s (Jafari, 2021; Prayag, 2020; Rasul, 2019). They are sensitive and conscious of Halal obligations, espe-cially when traveling to non-Muslim countries (Cuesta-Valino et al., 2020; Rahman et al., 2018). Muslims travel to perform Hajj, Umrah, Rihla and Ziyara to enrich their spirituality while participating in leisure travel religiously. Hence, most research highlights the relevance of religiosity in dictating such attitude. Although Islam religion mandates strict law regarding Muslim consumption behaviour, the extent to which their followers oblige to these rulings is likely to vary based on the level of religiosity. Concurrent with the sudden growth in supply and newly developed demand sources, there is a need to realise how Islamic religious principles and practices are manifest within the context of Islamic tourism current and future offerings.

 

3. I found that while the authors claim that there is a lot of different meanings that people put in the terms Halal hospitality, Islamic tourism, Muslim tourism, Muslim-friendly services, etc., the paper does not leave the reader with the feeling that those terms have been clarified.

We extended this section to further elaborate and clarifies the different terms used and how it been perceived by the informants.

 

4. I suggest the authors align better what they declare to achieve in Abstract with what has been put in the Intro, in the main body (the way the study unfolds), and in Conclusion.

Thank you for your suggestion. The abstract has been reworked based on your suggestion

 

5. As a reviewer, I would like to get an idea how the questions for the interviews were phrased.  

The interviews lasted on average 45 minutes each and were individually conducted by the authors. The objective of the interview was to explore their perception of the key trends, issues and future undertakings of the global Islamic tourism industry. The first section of the interview was aimed at collecting informant’s opinions about the evolution and current trends of Islamic tourism. Then, the informants were asked to comment on the Islamic tourism challenges, irrespective of their nations. Specific questions were asked on informant’s knowledge and their opinion on Islamic tourism future expectations. Hence, open-ended interviews were chosen to prevent bias and discover rather than prescribe.

 

6. I would suggest the authors formulate more explicitly the novelty points of their study. For example, the contrast between more religious tourists and the younger generation of [more secular?] Muslims? Can specific recommendation be formulated?

We extended the findings part to support your arguments. This growing young, middle-class generation is stocked with high buying power, where their needs and wants will be unique - raising questions about how tourism destinations can truly connect with them. They are poised to spend more on experiences, with the aim of reconnecting with their Islamic heritage or learning about the local community's life-styles during their travels. Unlike the older generations, the lack of Muslim-friendly facilities does not deter young travellers as they easily adapt their needs based on their surroundings, such as by turning to vegetarian meals or instant meals when Halal food options are lacking. This could be advantageous to the non-Muslim destinations targeting the Muslim market. With such understanding, non-Muslim destinations could open their door to these young Muslim travellers, creating a new revenue stream or income generation from a potentially lucrative niche market.

 

7. Overall, I would say that the authors should consider revising – wherever possible -  their writing toward a more specific, practical recommendations and limit the use of generic, already known ones.

The article has been amended with major corrections. We hope the modified article suits the reviewer's expectation.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Grateful for the effort made, the manuscript is more understandable from this new structure.

 

Successes.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Re: R2- Manuscript ID: tourismhosp-2017542

Title: Managing Modern Muslim travellers: Emerging Trends, Issues and Future Agenda for Muslim-friendly destinations

 

We want to thank you for the additional reviewer comments and the opportunity to resubmit a revised copy of this manuscript. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the reviewers for the positive feedback and helpful comments for correction or modification.

The manuscript has been revised (highlighted in green colour) to address the reviewer's comments, which are appended alongside our responses to this letter. For your information, the authors agreed that the paper cited additional recent studies as suggested by the reviewer in the interests of completeness.

We believe the revision resulted in an improved manuscript, which you will find uploaded alongside this document.

We hope the revised manuscript is accepted for publication in your journal.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Consider engaging the existing body of literature to frame your research questions and objectives. 

Better structure your findings. Provide quotes from the interviews to support your claims. 

Provide a better discussion of your research method. Provide interviewee details. Discuss your interpretive approach. 

Discuss your findings in light of previous research on the same issue. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

 

We want to thank you for your comments and the opportunity to resubmit a revised copy of this manuscript. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for the positive feedback and helpful comments for correction or modification.

 

The manuscript has been revised to address your suggestion and concern, which are appended alongside our responses to this letter. For your information, the authors agreed that the paper cited additional recent studies as suggested by the reviewer in the interests of completeness.

 

We believe the revision resulted in an improved manuscript, which you will find uploaded alongside this document.

 

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors cordial greetings, very grateful to be allowed to review your manuscript BManaging Modern Muslim travellers: Emerging Trends, Issues and Future Agenda for Muslim-friendly destinations, which I find interesting to read, but for this to be considered it has some opportunities for improvement.

 

The instruction section is very brief, it needs to be fed with more information, it is also important to show the gap information to which it points, for a qualitative method research it is important to nourish it with information. 

 

In the methodological section it is indicated that a review of the literature was made, and that some significant findings are handled, but I still do not understand the analysis of the results, these are not evidenced in any section, where is the process of codification, categorisation and triangulation? it is necessary to see graphically and explanatorily the positivist qualitative procedures of an investigation, this makes the interest of this manuscript significantly more expensive.

 

There is no discussion section to highlight the important findings and compare them with other research.

 

The conclusions need to be improved.

 

There is no section to indicate limitations and future research.

 

The editorial criteria of the journals should be reviewed as the standards are not stated in this manuscript.

 

All the best for your manuscript. 

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.docx