POSITIONING OF ISLAMIC HOTELS: A CORRESPONDENCE ANALYSIS APPROACH

Abstract

Islamic hotels are defined as those implementing the Islamic model of hospitality and this pioneering study aims to examine the positioning of these hotels compared to conventional hotels. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data and a total of 207 responses were received and analyzed. Correspondence analysis was used to analyze the data and perceptual maps were generated. The results showed that specific hotel attributes relate more to Islamic rather than to conventional hotels and that both types of hotels seem to lack a comparative positioning strategy. Islamic hotels could build on, and strengthen their current positions, while, simultaneously expanding their appeal to the non-Muslim travel market based on its desired attributes. Conventional hotels, on the other hand, could offer key attributes required by Muslim travelers in order to capture the growing Islamic travel market.

Keywords

• islamic hotels
• positioning
• perceptual maps
• correspondence analysis
• muslim traveler