EXPLORING THE VALIDATION OF ISLAMIC HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM DESTINATION: MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Hospitality symbolizes such kind of act which is consummated by the hosts to welcome and take care of guests or strangers or travelers till they stay at the home of host or any host country. The basic requirement of hospitality is to ensure providing of healthy food, drinks as well as comfortable and safety accommodation for welcomed guests or tourists. Islam always gives more importance and priority on hospitality and Muslims can enhance and increase their societal, national as well as international bondage strongly by dint of hospitality. In Malaysia Islamic tourism and hospitality industry has been potentially developed since Malaysia is enriched with arts, heritage and Muslim Malay culture. Although Islamic hospitality has been studied by many researchers, rare research has been done into the authentication of Islamic hospitality management. So, the main aim of this study is to explore the validation of Islamic hospitality management in the Malaysian tourism destination. A total of 563 Muslim tourists from 35 countries took part in this study. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was an appropriate data analysis technique for this study. A self-administrated questionnaire was developed. The 5-likert scale was used in questionnaires. The Cronbach?s alpha coefficient was used to test the reliability of the scale. The findings as analyzed by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) revealed that the overall fit indices showed a satisfactory fit to the empirical data. The criterion of p<0.001 and critical value of ?2 = 59.70 were used. The ratio was less than 2 and the value .786 showed that the model is fit. The P-value with the ratio more than 0.05 and at the value 0.599, GFI being more than 0.9 at the value of 0.997, TLI with ratio more than 0.9 and value of 1.003, and finally RMSEA`s critical ratio less than 0.08 and the value of 0.000 confirm this model to be significant and fit. The parameters were free from offending estimates. The results also contributed toward successful validation of Islamic hospitality management of Malaysian tourism destination. The significance of this study stands on its contribution to validate Islamic hospitality management; and it could be applied by future researchers in the various countries.