Drivers of Consumer Staying Intention Towards Islamic Green Hotel Industry: Evidence from Quantitative Findings

Abstract

This research study is endeavoured to discover the factors that will lead the consumers’ staying intention at green hotels, especially of those who practise the Shariah Law (Islamic green hotels). Nowadays, there has been an increase in public concern regarding environmental issues. Consumers are more environmentally aware than they were in past decades. Hotels are among the largest contributors of energy consumers in the tertiary building sector, which contribute to some negative impacts to the earth at the same time. The most obvious negative impact of hotels on environment are solid waste generation and disposal. Therefore, numerous consumers are supportive of green consumption and consider it as a successful method to protect the environment. In Islamic green hotels, Muslim-friendly amenities have also been provided to protect Muslims travellers’ welfare that is by providing them a comfortable prayer room, the Holy Quran and Islamic practices booklets, prayer mats and a direction of Qibla. A set of questionnaires was distributed to 256 respondents among the community and tourists in Kuching, Sarawak. The dependent variable in this study was consumers’ staying intention while the independent variables were green image, green satisfaction, Muslim amenities and lifestyle and price fairness. This research study also made use of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software to analyse the result based on the questionnaires distributed to the respondents. Based on the result of analysis, it is shown that the green image and green satisfaction were found of having a positive significant that influence the consumers’ staying intention at the Islamic green hotels. Besides that, Muslim amenities and lifestyle was also found to have a positive significant impact that influences the consumers’ staying intention. Most Muslims were likely to choose a destination with Islamic practice to fulfil their daily duties. However, green price fairness did not significantly influence the consumers’ staying intention. This is because if green image, green satisfaction, Muslim amenities, and lifestyle meet the requirements of the Muslim tourists, they would not be affected by the price. As a matter of fact, price may be the least factor of consideration by the tourists in choosing a hotel to stay.