Sustainability of religious travel and tourism: a profile deviation perspective

Abstract

Purpose In recent days, there has been an increasing interest towards achieving sustainable tourism objectives globally and specifically in Saudi Arabia. The benefits can be maximized if the government is successful in attracting current pilgrims and influence their future intention to revisit the country as tourists. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to measure pilgrims’ revisit intentions to understand more about the possibility of their potential contribution towards the Saudi tourism and hospitality industry in the evolving circumstances. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses configuration theory to identify the “ideal” type of the pilgrims and compares this to the rest to establish if they differ and if that difference matters. Data were collected from 278 visitors to the Holy Mosque in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, to perform Umrah. Findings The findings show that a large deviation from the “ideal pilgrim” is negatively related to revisiting intentions and dissemination of positive word of mouth (PWOM). Research limitations/implications The development of profiles gives a better understanding of organizations or people across several dimensions looked at holistically. Fundamental to the theory is that there are only a limited number of configurations that achieve optimal performance (however defined). Originality/value The analytical approach adopted in this paper leads to achieving verbal and statistical correspondence in tests of “gestalts”. The interest is in establishing whether this difference matters to intentions to revisit and providing PWOM.