Degree of Islamic culture adoption in Malaysian SME hospitality industries

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Current Issues in Tourism ISSN: 1368-3500 (Print)

Malaysian SME hospitality industries Rusnah Muhamad,

article: Rusnah Muhamad, Edward Sek Khin Wong &

adoption in Malaysian SME hospitality industries,

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1 Current Issues in Tourism ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: Degree of Islamic culture adoption in Malaysian SME hospitality industries Rusnah Muhamad, Edward Sek Khin Wong & Mukaidisi Abuduhaiti To cite this article: Rusnah Muhamad, Edward Sek Khin Wong & Mukaidisi Abuduhaiti (2016) Degree of Islamic culture adoption in Malaysian SME hospitality industries, Current Issues in Tourism, 19:3, , DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 27 Jan Submit your article to this journal Article views: 59 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [University of Malaya] Date: 25 February 2016, At: 01:03

2 Current Issues in Tourism, 2016 Vol. 19, No. 3, , RESEARCH LETTER Degree of Islamic culture adoption in Malaysian SME hospitality industries Rusnah Muhamad, Edward Sek Khin Wong* and Mukaidisi Abuduhaiti Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Received 12 August 2015; accepted 14 November 2015) This study examined the effect of Islamic culture adoption on consumer behaviour. It examined the relationship between Muslim tourists commitments to hotel selection behaviour in Malaysian SME hospitality industries and the Islamic cultural moderating effects of participation in their decision-making process. It has two objectives: the first was to determine the relationship between Muslim tourists commitments to hotel selection behaviour in Malaysia. The second objective was to investigate the moderating effect of Islamic culture in decision-making and participating effort on hotel selections of these same tourists. It was a descriptive study based on 350 surveys conducted among Muslim tourists in Malaysia. A total of 304 responses were received, representing a response rate of 93%. Of this, only 281 case with no missing values for all the variables were used for data analysis as the others were incomplete. The correlation analysis that resulted from this study confirmed previous researchers observations that higher Muslim customers commitment was linked with higher adoption in Islamic culture. The results suggested that among the three components of customer behaviour, Islamic culture and hotel attributes were the most important predictors of Muslim tourists in hotel selection behaviour. Keywords: Hospitality industry; consumer behaviour; Islamic role; SME firms; culture adoption Introduction Malaysia has been ranked in the third place in International Tourist Arrivals among the 53 Commonwealth countries in 2005 (Malaysia among top three in tourist arrival, 2005). In 2009, Malaysia entered The Top 10 Tourism Destination by being ranked ninth in the world and second in Asia (UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, 2010). In November 2009, Tourism Malaysia reported that the number of arrivals from Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran increased, respectively, by 119.5%, 80.3%, and 47.4% compared to the same time in It is also mentioned that visitors from the Middle East stay twice longer than tourists from other parts of the world and spend nearly three times more money. These positive growths indicate that Malaysia has great potential to be a leader in the world tourism market for Muslims. In order to succeed, it is important for marketers to understand their target market and how their customers evaluate products and make buying decisions. Knowing customer behaviour according to their individuality helps to shorten the distance from service *Corresponding author. edwardwong@um.edu.my 2016 Taylor & Francis

3 244 R. Muhamad et al. provider to consumer, and increases benefit from the market. Considering Malaysia, as a country of tourism, with 60.4% of Muslim population (The World Factbook, 2011), and growing Muslim tourists, understanding consumers religious background and its influences on their hotel selection is very essential compared to other countries. This study may help to enhance policy makers knowledge about the tourism and hospitality industry, and contribute to attract more Muslims by increasing tourists satisfaction The study focuses on hotel selection behaviour of tourists as an example of tourist behaviour. The specific objectives to carry out this study are: (1) To investigate the relationship between the degree of Islamic culture adoption level and hotel selection behaviour of Muslim travellers. (2) To examine differences between high degree of Islamic culture adoption level and lesser degree of Islamic culture adoption level of customers hotel selection behaviour. This study seeks to answer the following research questions (1) Is there any relationship between Muslim traveller s degree of Islamic culture and their hotel selection behaviour? (2) Is there any difference between highly religious and less religious customers hotel selection behaviour? Literature review In this section, the description on the relationship between consumer behaviour and Islamic culture and Islamic consumption is presented. It follows by the studies on hotel attributes and religious needs of travellers done by the past and present scholars. Consumer behaviour Human behaviour is very complicated and unpredictable by nature. In business researches, therefore, the area of consumer behaviour has been continuously being studied. Consumers are users of the products and services, at the same time; they are the ones who make the decision to choose products and services. Consumer behaviour is a study about how they buy, how they pick one brand while numerous of brands are out there, how often and from where they buy, as well as the reason why the consumers buy a product instead of another. Factors influencing consumer behaviour Many purchase decisions are, most of the times, made by automatic reaction of the mind without much efforts and serious thinking, which is considered as the outcome of habitual process. Gilbert (1991) pointed out that consumer s decision is affected by two levels of factors. The first level is about psychological influences which are motivation, perception, personality, and learning. The second level is made up of socioeconomic, cultural, reference groups, and family influences. It indicates that consumer behaviour includes a variety of key activities that influence decision-making. Consumers come with different ages,

4 Current Issues in Tourism 245 characteristics, educational backgrounds, income levels, and taste preferences. Everything around and within them may influence their choice of a product or service. Culture Culture is a complex concept (Manrai & Manrai, 1996); it is needed to be un-packaged,in order to understand its influences (McCort & Malhotra, 1993). Culture has many components that shape the lifestyle of people. Therefore, the purchased goods are identification of buyers cultural values and indication of what they are (Mowen, 2000). Solomon, Bamossy, and Askegaard (1995) stressed that consumer behaviour and culture may have two-way relationships. The goods and services that correspond to culture have a better chance to be accepted by the consumer. Social factors Behaviour of a consumer is also affected by social factors, such as reference group, family, social roles, and status (Kotler, 2012). He also stated that reference groups are groups that serve as direct or indirect points of reference in forming a person s attitudes or behaviour. Family, friends, and neighbours can be considered as indirect or direct reference groups. Bearden and Rose (1990) pointed out that reference groups not only show a new direction for an individual s behaviours but also have effects on an individual s attitude and selfconcept, which in turn influence actual brand preference and choice. Personal factors Past literature indicates that personal factors including age, sex, income level, and occupation produce a direct effect on consumer behaviour. For instance, Blattberg and Golanty (1978) found that consumers buying behaviours are significantly influenced by gender, income level, employment, and property. The age of the buyer as one of the major factors influences an individual s purchases (Cole & Siva, 1993). Moschis (1992) studied age, employment status, and household as demographic information of customers that would have effect on their reaction towards the stores voucher promotions. Moreover, lifestyle is a person s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests and opinions (Kotler, 2012). Psychological factors A number of complex behaviour factors lie in psychological factors including perception, motivations, attitudes, and learning (Kotler, 2012). He also stated that a motive can be created from pressing a person to seeking satisfaction. In other words, it leads consumers to follow particular goals because they are socially valued (Buchanan & Huczynski, 1997). Psychographic variables are very powerful that can be used to create psychographic profiles and typologies of luxury brand consumers, distinguish their segments, and significantly differentiate those segments from each other. Situational factors Situational factors which consist of social environment, location of the purchasing, time elements, etc. can influence decision making when a purchase is about to occur, for example, long waiting hours may make costumers feel bored and they may not come to

5 246 R. Muhamad et al. shop there again (Taylor, 1994). A stressful environment is one of the important situational factors that could have an effect on consumer behaviour. Methodology To describe the relationship between the two variables, degree of Islamic culture adoption level and hotel selection, a research framework is developed for this research as in Figure 1. Based on the discussions in the above section, literature review, hypotheses involved in this framework are developed as follows: H1: There is a relationship between Muslims degree of Islamic culture adoption level and hotel selection behaviour. H2: There is a difference between high degree of Islamic culture adoption level and lesser degree of Islamic culture adoption level of Muslims hotel selection behaviour. Sampling design and data collection procedure A total of 304 responses were received, representing a response rate of 93%. Of this, only 281 case with no missing values for all the variables were used for data analysis as the others were incomplete. Data analysis techniques The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 program. The following measures were derived from the sum of the Likert Scale points of the respective questions:. Muslim Attitude towards Hotel Choice Criteria.. Muslim Attitude towards degree of Islamic culture adoption level scale. Profile of respondents The majority of the respondents are male (55.2%) while the remaining are female respondents (44.8%) as referred to in Table 1 Hypothesis testing Pearson correlation Pearson s correlation is used to find a correlation between at least two continuous variables. Figure 1. Research frameworks.

6 Current Issues in Tourism 247 Table 1. Frequency of demographic information. Demographic information Frequency Per cent Gender Male Female Marital status Single Married Nationality Malaysian Non-Malaysian Non-Malaysian Tourist Further studying Working Total Age Under Education High school College degree Graduate college Lodging Luxury/up-scale Mid-price Budget economy Hotel categories International hotel Malaysian hotel Both Purpose Working-related trip Business trip Holiday trip Others Pearson s correlation is run for testing H1 to examine if there is a relationship between religiosity and hotel selection behaviour of Muslim travellers. Table 2 presents the test result that Pearsons Correlation value (r) is and the p value is less than.01. The result indicates that there is a strong, positive relationship between religiosity and hotel selection (r =.557, p <.01), hence HI is accepted. To find out relationships between factors of the two variables, Pearson s correlation is used for the three factors of Hotel Selection and the four factors of Religiosity. The test result is given in Table 3. From the table, it is revealed that the Hotel Selection Factor 1 (Muslim-friendly Attributes) has a significant relationship with all four factors of Religiosity. The strength of the relationships is strong with Factor 1 (Recommended Practices) and Factor 2 (Mandatory Obligations) according to value of r, and 0.649; it is medium with Factor 3 (Attitude), r = 0.304, and weak with Factor 4 (Belief), r = The result indicates that there is a very high possibility that the travellers who scored high on Religiosity Factor 1 (Recommended

7 248 R. Muhamad et al. Table 2. Correlations for Hypothesis 1. Religiosity Hotel selection Religiosity Pearson s correlation 1.557** Sig. (two-tailed).000 N Hotel Selection Pearson s correlation.557 a 1 Sig. (two-tailed).000 N a Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). Practices) and Factor 2 (Mandatory Obligations) may prefer to select hotels providing Hotel Selection Factor 1 (Muslim-friendly Attributes). The likelihood exists; yet, it is smaller for those who scored high on Religiosity Factor 3 (Attitude) and Religiosity Factor 4 (Belief). It is shown that Hotel Selection Factor 2 (Hotel Environment) has a significant relationship with two factors of Religiosity, Factor 3 (Attitude) and Factor 4 (Belief). The strength of the relationships is weak for both factors; r values are and There is no relationship found between Hotel Selection Factor 2 and Religiosity Factors 1 (Recommended Practices) and 2 (Mandatory Obligations). It means that the travellers who scored high on Religiosity Factor 3 (Attitude) and Factor 4 (Belief) may select hotels providing Hotel Selection Factor 2 (Hotel Environment), but the possibility is smaller. The travellers who scored high on Religiosity Factor 1 (Recommended Practices) and Religiosity Factor 2 (Mandatory Obligations) may or may not consider those attributes are important. Weak relationships are found between Hotel Selection Factor 3 (Additional Service and Facilities) and two factors of Religiosity, Factor 1 (Recommended Practices) and Factor 2 (Mandatory Obligations), the r values are and 0.149, respectively. There is no relationship found between Hotel Selection Factor 3 and the remaining two factors of Religiosity, Factor 3 (Attitude) and Factor 4 (Belief). It is revealed that the travellers who scored high on Religiosity Factor 1 (Recommended Practices) and Factor 2 (Mandatory Obligations) may think the attributes Hotel Selection Factor 3 (Additional Service and Table 3. Hotel Selection Factor 1 Hotel Selection Factor 2 Hotel Selection Factor 3 Correlations between factors of hotel selection and religiosity. Religiosity Factor 1 Religiosity Factor 2 Religiosity Factor 3 Religiosity Factor 4 Pearson.727 a.649 a.304 a.172 a correlation Sig. (two-tailed) N Pearson a.194 a correlation Sig. (two-tailed) N Pearson.289 a.149 b correlation Sig. (two-tailed) N a Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). b Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

8 Current Issues in Tourism 249 Facilities) important as they select a hotel, but the likelihood is smaller. However, Hotel Selection Factor 3 (Additional Service and Facilities) may not have influences on hotel selection behaviour of those scoring high on Religiosity Factor 3 (Attitude) and Factor 4 (Belief). T-test The independent-samples t-test assesses whether the means of two groups are statistically different from each other (Pallant, 2005). It is the most commonly used method to evaluate the differences in means between two groups. In this research, the t-test is applied for tasting H2 to find out if there is any difference between highly religious and less religious Muslims behaviour in hotel selection. The two-tail significance is p <.05, and thus is significant. In Table 4, it indicates that hypothesis II is accepted; significant differences exist between highly religious and less religious Muslims hotel selection behaviour, t ( ) = 0.603, p <.05 (Table 4). According to Pallant (2005) the magnitude of the differences is commonly measured by eta squared. Eta squared indicates the percentage of variance in the dependent variable which is explained by the independent variable; its value ranges from 0 to 1, 0.01 = small effect, 0.06 = moderate effect, and 0.14 = large effect. The following equation is used to calculate eta squared: Eta squared = Eta squared = t 2 t 2 + (N1 + N2 2. ( )2 ( )2 + ( ) By replacing with the values from the tables above, the eta squared value of this study is 0.357, which is a large effect. It expresses that 35.7% of the variance in the Hotel Selection is explained by the two different level religious groups of the variable Religiosity. The independent-samples t-test is conducted to observe the differences between highly religious and less religious travellers preferences according to each factor of Hotel Selection. Table 5 shows descriptive statistics for the two groups in Religiosity and three factors in Hotel Selection. Conclusion The findings of the research provide implications for the Malaysian hospitality industry. Relationships between religiosity and hotel selection behaviour This study provides evidence that travellers religiosity and hotel selection behaviour have a strong positive relationship. Testing on each factor suggested that Muslim-friendly Attributes has a significant relationship with all four factors of Religiosity. The study shows that Muslim-friendly Attributes may have a strong effect on the choices of the travellers who scored high on Religiosity factors Recommended Practices and Mandatory Obligations, has smaller effect for those who scored high on Attitude and Belief. In terms of attributes related to Hotel

9 Table 4. Hotel Selection Table 5. Independent samples test for hypothesis II. Levene s test for equality of variances F Sig. t df Sig. (twotailed) t-test for equality of means Mean difference Std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Group statistics for religiosity and factors in hotel selection. Hotel selection Religiosity N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean Factor 1 Less religious Highly religious Factor 2 Less religious Highly religious Factor 3 Less religious Highly religious Lower Upper 250 R. Muhamad et al.

10 Current Issues in Tourism 251 Environment, it is revealed that the travellers who have a high score on Religiosity factors Attitude and Belief may be influenced by attributes related to Hotel Environment in their hotel selection, but the possibility is smaller. The travellers who scored high on Religiosity factors Recommended Practices and Mandatory Obligations may not be influenced by the factor Hotel Environment. Hotel Additional Service and Facilities was found to have a weak effect on the travellers choice who scored high on Religiosity factors Recommended Practices and Mandatory Obligations; on the other hand, the hotel Additional Service andfacilities was found to have no effect on hotel selection behaviour of those who scored high on Religiosity factors Attitude and Belief. In general, it can be concluded that Muslim friendly hotel attributes have influences on hotel selection decision of Muslims who scored high in any factor of Religiosity. Furthermore, hotel Additional Service and Facilities may have some an effect on choices of highly religious Muslims (who perform recommended and obligatory Islamic practices on their daily life). Analysis for relationship between Religiosity and the given 26 hotel attributes revealed that Religiosity has a significant positive relationship with 14 of the 26 hotel attributes which meant the higher the religiosity, the higher the 14 hotel attributes were rated. Differences between highly religious and less religious travellers Hotel selection behaviour Results revealed that choices of less religious and highly religious consumers have significant differences. Testing differences between highly religious and less religious travellers preferences according to each factor of hotel selection showed that the highly religious and less religious Muslim travellers choices are significantly different for two Hotel Selection factors, Muslim-friendly Attributes and Additional Service and Facilities; the findings indicated that highly religious travellers think the Muslim-friendly Attributes and Additional Service and Facilities more important than less religious Muslim travellers. There is no significant difference found between the two groups of travellers in selecting attributes related to Hotel Environment. Findings from analysing differences between highly religious and less religious customers ratings of the importance of the 26 hotel attributes suggested that the two groups have a significantly different attitude towards 14 hotel attributes. Finally, in selecting hotel lodging criteria, both highly religious and less religious travellers were seen to more prefer mid-price hotel rooms; less religious travellers appeared to select luxury rooms more frequently and highly religious travellers had chosen budget economy rooms more than those who were less religious. This may be because highly religious people have less interest in the worldly things compared to less religious people. Funding The research was funded by the University of Malaya Equitable Society Research Cluster UMRG grant. References Bearden, W., & Rose, R. (1990, March 16). Attention to social comparison information: An individual difference factor affecting consumer conformity. Journal of Consumer Research, 16,

11 252 R. Muhamad et al. Blattberg, R., & Golanty, J. (1978). Tracker: An early test market forecasting and diagnostic model for new product planning. Journal of Marketing Research, 15(2), Buchanan, D., & Huczynski, A. (1997). Organizational Behaviour: An introductory text (3rd ed.). Hemel Hempstead: Pearson Prentice-Hall. Cole, C., & Siva, K. (1993). Age differences in consumers research for information: Politic implications. Journal of Consumer Research, 20(6), Gilbert, D. (1991). An examination of the consumer behavior process related to tourism. In C. P. Cooper (Ed.), Progress in tourism, recreation and hospitality management (Vol. 3, pp ). London: Bellhaven Press. Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing management (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall. Manrai, L., & Manrai, A. (1996). Current issues in the cross-cultural and cross-nationalconsumer research. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 8(3/4), McCort, D. J., & Malhotra, N. K. (1993). Culture and consumer behavior: Toward and understanding of cross-cultural consumer behavior in international marketing. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 6(2), Mowen, J. C. (2000). The 3M Model of Motivation and Personality. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic. Moschis, G. P. (1992). Marketing to older consumers. Westport, CT: Quorum. Pallant, J. F. (2005). SPSS Survival Manual: a step by step guide to data analysis using SPSS (2nd ed.). Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Solomon, M., Bamossy, G., & Askegaard, S. (1995). Consumer behavior: A european perspective prentice perspective. London: Prentice Hall International. Taylor, S. (1994). Waiting for service: The relationship between delays and evaluations of service. Journal of Marketing, 58, The World Factbook. (2011). Retrieved from UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. (2010, June). Retrieved from pdf/barometer/unwto_barom10_2_en.pdf

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