Antecedents of word of mouth in Muslim-friendly tourism marketing: the role of religiosity

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of religiosity on Muslim-friendly destination performance, customer engagement and customer satisfaction; the mediating impact of Muslim-friendly destination performance, customer engagement and customer satisfaction on the link between religiosity and word of mouth (WOM); and the moderating impact of religiosity on the relationship between Muslim-friendly tourism, customer engagement and customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach The population of this study was all tourists who visited West Sumatra Indonesia. By using a survey through questionnaires, this study has got 393 out of 450 collected responses (83.6%). This research used the structural equation modeling as the data analysis technique. Findings This research found that religiosity is a significant antecedent of Muslim-friendly tourism, customer engagement and tourist satisfaction. This study revealed that Muslim-friendly tourism, customer engagement and tourist satisfaction significantly mediate the link between religiosity and WOM. This research also found that religiosity significantly moderates the effect of Muslim-friendly tourism on tourist satisfaction. Research limitations/implications This study was only conducted in Indonesia; hence, it lacks generality. Accordingly, future studies can expand to several other countries such as Southeast Asian countries which have big Muslim population. This study only focused on Muslim-friendly tourism industry as a whole. For future studies, it can be extended to several related industries, such as hotel, food and beverage and halal cosmetic. Practical implications This study has shown the important of manager knowledge about religiosity of customers. Accordingly, when they want to increase tourists’ WOM, they have to increase tourist perceived quality of Muslim-friendly tourism attributes which also have an impact on customer engagement and tourist satisfaction. Originality/value This study proposes the direct relationship between religiosity and Muslim-friendly tourism, the religiosity-customer engagement link and the religiosity-tourist satisfaction relation. This research has revealed the mediating effect of Muslim-friendly tourism, satisfaction and engagement on the link between religiosity and WOM. This study has also revealed the impact of religiosity in strengthening the link between halal tourism and tourist satisfaction which is limited previously.