Loyalty motivations for religious tourism: Indonesian Muslim travelers umrah participating in umrah pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how motivation aspects including expected organizational rewards (EOR) and enjoyment in helping others (EHO) drive umrah travelers’ participation. Furthermore, it verifies the effect of umrah travelers’ participation on loyalty and assesses the perceived value and umrah travelers’ satisfaction emerging in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The survey uses the purposive sampling method. Data analysis uses confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling with a total sample of 438 umrah travelers. Findings The results show that EOR and EHO affect umrah travelers’ participation; umrah travelers’ participation has a direct effect on umrah travelers’ loyalty; and all the relationships between umrah travelers’ participation, perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty are significant. Originality/value This study contributes to the theory of religious tourism particularly in identifying the motivation aspects as the antecedents of umrah travelers’ participation beyond religiosity. Furthermore, this study provides the theory of umrah travelers’ participation and loyalty and proposes that perceived value and satisfaction emerge in this relationship.

Customer participation, value co-creation and customer loyalty: evidence from Umrah travel agencies in Indonesia

“…Umrah travelers' participation significantly impacts co-creation value This study confirms that service brand image, service employee performance and perceived willingness to customize successfully affect Umrah travelers' participation, supports H1-H3. The results in line with a previous study that reported extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can stimulate Umrah travelers' participation (Wu and Mursid, 2019). The significant effect of service brand image on Umrah travelers' participation relevant with previous study that informed brand experience value significantly affects customer cocreation attitude and behavior (Ahn et al, 2019).…”

“…The growing number of publications in religious tourism investigated the main topics include destination, demand and marketing (Heidari et al, 2018). Other scholars have investigated religious tourism such as the motivation aspects of Muslim travelers to choose the destination from Islamic compliance (Rahman et al, 2017) and the extrinsic and intrinsic factors of Umrah travelers' participation in enhancing loyalty (Wu and Mursid, 2019). Using a qualitative study, Handriana et al (2019) have explored pilgrimage tourism in Indonesia from various motivational perspectives.…”

“…Likewise, while customer participation includes member interaction and activity involvement, one study showed that member interaction does not significantly impact brand loyalty, while member interaction does (Hwang et al, 2018). In the context of religious tourism, Wu and Mursid (2019) found that Umrah travelers' participation has a direct effect on Umrah traveler loyalty.…”

The Emergence of a New Religious Travel Segment: Umrah Do It Yourself Travellers (Diy)

“…Almuhrzi and Alsawafi (2017) discovered that attaining inner harmony, integrating and seeking opportunities to grow in spirituality, engaging with family and friends about the meaning of life and so on are the motivations for Umrah travel among Oman travellers. Furthermore, a study conducted by Wu and Mursid (2020) on Indonesian Muslim Umrah travellers to Makkah found that quality, price, emotions, social connections and physical and non-physical Islamic attributes are the values that lead to participation in Umrah. Although the results from both studies are inconsistent, they show that the participation of Umrah travellers promotes both hedonic and emotional values, and that there are significant variations between senior and young travellers, where senior travellers see the educational purposes and feelings of national identity related to sacred sites as important, while these are less motivating for young travellers (Irimias et al, 2016).…”

A Tale of Umrah Pilgrims Fraud in Indonesia: a Narrative Review Indicating and Anticipating “Fake Bureau”

“…According to the data Global Religious Future (2020), the number of Muslim population in Indonesia in 2020 will reach 229.62 million people or 87% of the population. Indonesia has potential in the field of organizing the Umrah and Hajj pilgrimages (Wu and Mursid, 2019). Public interest in performing Umrah worship is so high (Kumaladewi et al, 2017;Korayan and Djayaputra, 2018).…”