1.1 Background of the study

Nowadays the world has become a small township by the host of modern technology, economic openness, communications and transport which made it possible to overpass the distances between the countries. whereas, these successful countries and institutions will achieve benefit if they will take the advantage of this opportunity in their development process (S. Melisidou & N. Theocharis, 1992) and even if these institutions must pay the cost of these modernization in term of how to deal with differences of the clients in their culture, religion, language and level of thinking. Therefore, some studies proved that when the organizations examine these differences and provide service to the customers according to their requests will succeed while the other organizations will fail to revolutionize from local to global when ignoring these differences.

In addition, there is a particular importance for measuring customer satisfaction with service related to the institutions seeking for succeeds, because the successful institutions was focused on pleasing its customers to increase their earnings properties which will enable it to endure and challenge in the market (Chingang & Lukong, 2010).

The tourism sector similar to other sectors has a customer’s which they need to provide them a service according to their needs and wishes. On the other side if the countries plan to acquire succeed in the tourism sector, it should focus on satisfying its customers according to their different cultures (John S. & Damiannah, 2003). Besides these many countries were failed to attract a lot of tourists because it was providing financial support for the tourism sector but is not convinced with the idea of modern marketing approach which focuses on customer satisfaction.

The tourists has differ in many points such as culture, the scientific, social and financial stage . . . etc., along with the religion which represents as a one of the cultural variation of the tourists. Hence religion has a significant influence on the way of dealing, consumption, ingestion, housing and the entertainment. However, each followers of every religion has varies from the other with some characteristics which control their needs and wishes, which will automatically affects their satisfaction with the service that provided by the tourism’s organization.

The Muslim tourists has a manner of culture which identifies their desires and behavior similar to other religion, and to give pleasure to the Muslim tourists can be accomplish by providing the requires and desires according to their point of view towards the services process which was provided by tourism organizations that are dealing with such as airports, transportation, accommodation, entertainment and shopping venue.

(Guenter Meyer 2004) were clarified that the Islamic Tourism was receiving more concern from the countries and institutions that seeks to be prominent in the field of tourism.

The Islamic tourism can be expresses by three concepts are:

The economic concept: This means to expand the tourism range and to increase new tourist destinations.

The cultural concept: This refers to the presents of the Islamic heritage of Muslim tourists, such as pilgrimage rite, visiting the great mosques and Islamic museums.

The religious concept: This means to afford services for Muslim tourists according to the Islamic law, such as providing places for the prayer and to separate the place for male and female, besides provides halal food and to prohibits the alcohol.

The (Theresa A Pawitra, Kay C Tan 2003) examined tourist satisfaction in Singapore from Indonesian tourists perspective and he found the Indonesian tourists are more interested in shopping and eating, than in attending, for example, arts or local cultural events. and he recommend in Future researches should considers other major tourist markets, because the differences in culture and nationality would be expected to have an impact on tourists satisfaction and perception.

And (Adi Weidenfeld 2006) said, in the current competitive environment, the tourism and hospitality industries are constantly searching for new customer segments and for ways of improving competitiveness. Thus, the provision of religious aspects in the hospitality product could prove a valuable and integral part of the customer’s orientation. That paper highlighted the importance of satisfying religious needs to increase the satisfaction of customers. This is the first time empirical findings concerning the religious needs of tourists, and the sample of study consists of 179 Christian tourists in Israel. and suggests that the tourists’ religious needs constitute an independent area of research and that satisfying religious needs should be taken into consideration in tourism industry.

And he is advise the other examiners by doing many studies about effect the another religions on customers satisfaction in tourism industry. like islamic religion and because Malaysia is best modern country in islamic world consequently it’s best place for this study.

According to the above mentioned, it was clear that Malaysia has a mixture of cultures and there are large numbers of Muslim tourists has come across malaysia from different countries, which will make it a suitable place to conduct these studies. Therefore, recent studies in malaysia regarding the tourism industry were found that the number of tourists who arrived to Malaysia in year 2009 was reached (21,505,120) tourists and it is noticeable that the tourists from Muslim countries was clearly increased with high percentage if we compared it with the number of tourists for the year 2008, like the tourists from Saudi Arabia increased by 119% and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 80.3%, Bangladesh 56.8 and Iran 47.4% (Malaysia Tourism Report Q1 2010). The (Muhannad M.A Abdallat. Hesham El -Sayed. Zainal) examined the relationship between the loyalty and the destination of the international tourists that was arriving to Malaysia and he found that there is a positive relationship between loyalty and self-image of Malaysia as a tourist destination.

this research, will examine the customer satisfaction from the perspective of tourists coming to Malaysia, and to measure the satisfaction of Muslim tourists with the services that provided, and what are their expectations of the level of service that provided by the Malaysian tourism organizations and what are the reasons for visiting and for choosing Malaysia as a tourist destination.

1.2 Research problem

There is a relationship between the tourist satisfaction about the service and the tourism destination, and the tourist builds his expectations through the tourism and business advertising and the views of others (John S. et al, 2002), where the pleasing tourist will try to repeat his visit, or at least to inform his friends and relatives about his experience of successful (Patricia, et al, 2006).

The tourists can be influencing by many factors rather than the price, the quality of the product and service, because of the customs and the traditions including the religion itself, which influences the satisfaction concept of the service, for instance the way to express thanks for the tour guide is differ from culture to culture (Gao-Liang et al, ), and the pleasure with the service have an effect on the decision-making by the determination of the tourism destination (Vesna Žabkar, et al ). Therefore, it is difficult to appraise the pleasure for a certain category of religions and cultures and to apply this to the rest of religions, which it gives us incorrect records.

The (Ihsan. Mohamed. Abd- alah) were studied the pleasure of Muslim pilgrims about the accommodation in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and he determined the causes that made them live in this region and what is the quality of services that provided to them. The research concluded that the pilgrims are not satisfied with some services, like the time and the difficulty of transportation. While the (Zulkifli Ibrahim and others 2009) studied the pleasure of Arab tourists about the quality of service in the Malaysian five star hotels, this study was conducted on the hotels that was located in Kuala Lumpur, and the research concluded that the Arab tourists prefer to make the gender splitting up of male and female and they prefer to provide a receptionist who can speak Arabic language at the hotel reception, because of most the Arab tourists does not speak good in English conservation. Consequently, this research will concentrates on the study of the customer satisfaction from the perspective of Muslim tourists.

1.3 Research Questions

The research will try to find answer for these questions:

What are the main reasons for the Muslim tourists selecting Malaysia as a tourist destination?

What are the dimensions of the expected quality service from the perspective of Muslim tourists come to Malaysia as a tourist destination?

What are the dimensions of the perceived quality service from the perspective of Muslim tourists come to Malaysia as a tourist destination?

Are there any differences between expected quality and perceived quality from the perspective of Muslim tourists in tourist establishments in Malaysia?

What is the level of service quality has been affected by demographic variables for Muslim tourists (sex, age, education, occupation, monthly income and social status)?

1.3 The importance of research

The measure of the customer satisfaction is an important strategy and also represent as a main engine of profit along with maintaining the characteristics of the trade’s brand (N.Theocharis). Hence, the importance of the research has imply that the tourism services sector plays an important role in the global economy but it needs to focus deeply on the religious factor because it influence the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the customer with the service that provided to him. Therefore, the Islamic religion is one of these religions, where the tourists Muslim have different desires from the rest of the tourists, such as providing places for prayer and eating halal food and prohibited of mixing male with female (Guenter Meyer, 2004). So, to think about this factor (religious factor) by the researchers is still undersized in most countries except some countries such as Malaysia.

Therefore , it will requires more research especially those related to religious factor and its impact on the tourism sector in order to identify the services that will satisfy the tourists Muslim and to find out their attitudes and to distinguish the reasons for their preference towards some services than others.

1.4 Research Objectives

The main objective of the tourism organizations is to serve the customers more than excellent and to increase the customer’s satisfaction through continuous improvement and rising up the level of service (N. Theocharis ).

This study will focus on the satisfaction of the specific kind of tourists who are Muslims, which will intend to provide accurate data related to this category, through achievement of the following goals:

To know the reasons for selecting Malaysia as a tourist destination by the tourists Muslim.

To measure the expected quality of service from the tourists Muslim’s point of view.

To determine the perceived quality of service for tourists Muslim’s scales.

Analyzing the relationship between perceived quality of service and the Muslim customer’s satisfaction (measuring the tourist’s satisfaction).

Applying a model to assess the quality of service that provided to tourists Muslim.

To achieve some conclusions and suggestions that could contribute to the development of quality service in the Malaysian tourism sector.

1.5 Outline of the study

Chapter One: General Research Framework.

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Problem of the study

1.3 Research questions

1.4 Objectives of the study

1.5 Importance of the study

1.6 Outline of the study

Chapter two: literature review.

2.1- Review of the tourism in Malaysia

2.2- Previous studies.

Chapter three: methodology of the study.

3.1- model of the study.

3.2- The study hypotheses.

3.3- Approaches are will used in this study.

3.4- The questionnaire design.

3.5- Sampling.

3.6- Data collection method.

3.7- limitations of the study.

3.8- statistical methods used in the study.