MUSLIM AND BUDDHIST VENUE STAFF KNOWLEDGE OF ISLAM AND THEIR VIEWS ON RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN THE MICE INDUSTRY IN SOUTHERN THAILAND
Abstract
This paper is based on a research project that examined the influence of Islam on hospitality and customer service standards in the MICE industry in Southern Thailand. The paper will reflect on the findings of face-to-face interviews with 18 Buddhist and 44 Muslim staff of three MICE venues in the area. The findings reveal that even though it was not clear why there were slightly different views repressed by Buddhist and Muslim staff participants, Islam is generally regarded as a significant belief and practices to Muslim lives. This paper contends that across the three MICE venues Muslim and Buddhist staff work harmoniously together and that each holds the other in high esteem, with Buddhists viewing the role played by their Muslim colleagues as being of vital importance to the MICE sector. There was a seeming discord between the way Thai Muslims practice Islam and what participants expect in the way of the provision of Islamic-based services and facilities in the MICE sector that will be further explored in this paper.References
Andrews, T. G. & Siengthai, S. (2009). The changing face of management in Thailand, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Bazeley, P. (2013). Qualitative data analysis with NVIvo. London: SAGE
Battour, M., Ismail, M. N. & Battor, M. (2011). The impact of destination attributes
on Muslim tourist's choice. International Journal of Tourism Research, 13, 527-540.
Campiranon, K. (2006). Understanding crisis vulnerability of the MICE sector: a
case study of Thailand, The University of Queensland Press.
Creswell, J. W., & Clark, V. L. P. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd edition). California, USA.: SAGE Publications.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches: The United States of America, SAGE Publications, Inc.
Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: theory and practice (Fourth edition). New York: Routledge.
Mansouri, S. (2014, January). Role of halal tourism ideology in destination competitiveness: a study on selected hotels in Bangkok, Thailand. Paper presented at the International Conference on Law, Education and Humanities (ICLEH'14), Pattaya, Thailand.
Muhamad Nor, N. S. N. B., Daud, N. (2012, March). Destination Branding Strategies on Halal Hospitality and Its Effect on Tourists’ Intention Towards Malaysia. Paper Presented at 3rd International Conference on Business and Economic Research, Bandung, Indonesia.
Razalli, M. R., Abdullah, S. & Hassan, M. G. (2012, June). Developing a Model for Islamic Hotels: Evaluating Opportunities and Challenges. Paper Presented at the Evaluating Opportunities and Challenges International Conference on Knowledge Culture and Society, Jeju Island, South Korea.
Samori, Z. & Rahman, F. A. (2013a, June). Towards the formation of Shariah compliant hotel in Malaysia: an exploratory study on its opportunities and challenges. Paper presented at the WEI International Academic Conference, The West East Institute, Istanbul, Turkey.
Samori, Z. & Rahman, F. A. (2013b). Establishing Shariah compliant hotels in
Malaysia: identifying opportunities, exploring challenges. West East Journal of
Social Sciences, 2, 95-108.
Samori, Z. & Sabtu, N. (2014). Developing halal standard for Malaysian hotel industry: an exploratory study. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 12, 144-157.
Stephenson, M. L. (2010). Islamic hospitality in the UAE: indigenization of products and human capital. Journal of Islamic Marketing, 1, 9-24.
UNWTO Tourism Highlights (2012). Long term trends.
http://dtxtq4w60xqpw.cloudfront.net/sites/all/files/docpdf/unwtohighlights12enlr_1.pdf.
Writer, S. (2011). First Shari'ah-compliant resort to open in Maldives. Cengage Learning, Inc.
Zailani, S., Omar, A. & Kopong, S. (2011). An exploratory study on the factors influencing the non-compliance to halal among hoteliers in Malaysia. International Business Management, 5, 1-12.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Author(s) shall retain the copyright of their work and grant the Journal/Publisher right for the first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows for the copying, distribution and transmission of the work, provided the correct attribution of the original creator is stated. Adaptation and remixing are also permitted.
This broad license intends to facilitate free access to, as well as the unrestricted reuse of, original works of all types for non-commercial purposes.
The author(s) permits HH Publisher to publish this article that has not been submitted elsewhere.
.png){kind=logo}
.jpg)
