15. Attitudes, Lifestyle and Social Benefits of Local Communities Towards Islamic Tourism Development in Malaysia

Muslim market is one of the latest growing market segments in the world. Muslim countries, such as Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Indonesia have developed Islamic tourism in marketing the country as a holiday destination for Muslim travellers. Non-Muslim countries, such as Japan, Korea, Thailand and Europe also show great interest to attract this market. There are various issues and challenges faced by these countries. Malaysia, being a multiracial and multi-religious country with Islamic modernization and revivalism has provided an interesting research context for Islamic tourism development. The issues and challenges such as the sensitivities and sensibilities of the other religion towards the implementation of Islamic tourism in the country may exist. These issues are also supported based on the previous studies where problems such as complications of the relationship and disagreement between religious practices occurred when tourism and Islamic religion came in contact. Thus, this study aimed to (i) identify the most influential socio-cultural attributes towards the development of Islamic tourism in Malaysia, (ii) to investigate the relationship between socio-cultural attributes and the development of Islamic tourism in Malaysia, and (iii) to examine the government support as the moderating variable towards the development of Islamic tourism in Malaysia. The findings and results from this research may benefit the local communities as well as the government particularly the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and also Islamic Tourism Centre (ITC). The outcome of this study also could be used as an indicator in setting up the particular policy standard for Islamic tourism development. As for the local communities which consist of multiracial community, they surely will have a better understanding regarding the proper Islamic tourism perspective.