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operators on destination loyalty: Survey on Arab Muslim visitors
S. Wahab
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam, Malaysia
M. Yusoff
Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: Destination loyalty has been mentioned as one of the most important subject in tour-
ism studies. Many factors might influence tourist's loyalty to the visited destination. Foreign language
practices among tourism operators might be one of them. In order to test the proposed hypotheses,
a structured questionnaire was administered to tourists of Middle East tourist around Kuala Lumpur
City, Malaysia. From 200 set of questionnaires distributed randomly to Arab tourist, 100 were valid to
analyzed. The results seem to show that Arabic language communication practices by tourism operators,
effect tourist enjoyment and destination loyalty. These conclusions may well prove crucial for the future
use of the variety foreign language in the promotion of tourism destinations. The results of the study lend
support to the importance of the Arabic language as an information source in the promotion of tourism
destinations, which contributes in particular to attracting new visitors especially from the Middle East.
The study focuses on empirically testing the advantages that, from a merely conceptual perspective, are
becoming evident in the use of the variety communication language in the tourist sector.
Keywords
:
Tourism, communication skills, Arabic language, destination loyalty, Middle East
1 INTRODUCTION
from a merely conceptual perspective, are becoming
evident in the use of Internet in the tourist sector.
Destination loyalty has been mentioned as one of
the most important subject in many academic stud-
ies. Many factors can influence tourists to become
loyal to the destination they visited. Language
is a factor why tourist travel and become loyal to
the destination (Yoon & Uysal, 2005). In visiting
destination, tourist satisfaction is the logical areas
to be studied in order to understand more about
customer experience and to destination's repeat
visitation (Allen, Rodriguez & Fraiz, 2007). Hence,
language used and tourist satisfaction are signifi-
cantly important towards ensuring the tourists' loy-
alty towards particular destination.
According to Opperman (2000), research on
destination loyalty has not been thoroughly investi-
gated. In previous academic studies, there are many
factors can affect the tourist to revisit the destina-
tion. That makes the competition in the tourism
industry become stiffer. Many countries especially
in Asian such as Thailand and Indonesia have vari-
ous beautiful places that can attract to visit their
country. Therefore, Malaysia need to develop their
marketing destinations' strategy ensures the loyalty
of tourists to visit the same destination again. In
Tourism may be as the sum of the process, activi-
ties, and outcomes arising from the relationships
and the interaction among tourist, tourism suppli-
ers, host governments who are involved in attract-
ing, transporting, hosting and managing of tourists
and other visitors (Weaver, 2010). Given the current
and potential future importance of the verbal com-
munication as an information source in the tourism
sector, it appears necessary to analyze the conse-
quences of tourist satisfaction with the informa-
tion obtained through the verbal communication.
If the positive effect of the former on destination
satisfaction were to be demonstrated, it would pro-
vide overwhelming empirical support for the inclu-
sion of that information source in the promotional
mix of tourism destinations. Moreover, the present
study focuses on the moderation effect of destina-
tion experience as well as communication experi-
ence on this relationship. These variables may well
alter the propose defect due to the typology of the
product under analysis (experience product) and the
necessary experience in the use of the communica-
tion medium. Consequently, the study will focus in
the main on empirically testing the advantages that,
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