Motivated Muslims: Exploring Travel Career Patterns Among Indonesian Tourists

Abstract

Indonesian Muslim tourists represent a large and potentially very significant segment of the Asian travel market. Perhaps surprisingly, their motives for taking leisure holidays have not been systematically addressed in the academic literature. Building on conceptual work in tourist motivation, and specifically the travel career pattern approach, the first aim of the study was to identify the motives and review the motive patterns of Muslim tourists from Indonesia. The study also addressed the differences between less experienced and more experienced Indonesian Muslim tourists with a view to understanding potential travel careers and future market directions. One hundred and ninety six respondents, principally from Jakarta and Bandung, were surveyed with a 26-item questionnaire. The findings suggested that Muslim tourists undertaking leisure-based holidays placed special attention on relationships, safety, and nature, all concerns consistent with the teaching of Islam and a collectivist culture. Previous travel experience influenced the motivational patterns but only in minor ways, possibly because the differences in the levels of travel experience were not substantial. The concept of the development of a travel career for this sample emerged intact from the study and offers predictions for the continuing and changing demand from this market in the coming decades.