The Perspectives of Academic Member of the Theology Faculty toward Halal Tourism

Abstract

Halal tourism is a relatively new concept in tourism industry and an open field for improvement. In the literature for this niche market which has a great potential, because of the new terminology of the concept, it is seen that there are different uses such as ‘Halal Tourism’, Islamic Tourism’ or ‘Muslim Friendly Tourism’ for the tourism products and services that address the needs of Muslim tourists. Using this concept differently leads to both conceptual confusion in the literature and complexity in understanding the concept by tourists. In this context, because the nature of the concept is multidisciplinary and the religious aspect is dominant, the aim of the study is to determine the perspectives of the academic member of the Theology Faculty about halal tourism. Within this scope, the phenomenology design which is one of the qualitative research methods was preferred because of the deep understanding of the actors’ perspectives and the exploration of personal perspectives and the data obtained from the academic member of the Theology Faculty at Siirt University were evaluated in this context. As a basic result of the research, it was determined that the participants evaluated the concept of halal tourism within the themes of ‘Food and Beverage’, ‘Adherence to Islamic Rules’ and ‘Compliance with Beliefs and Values’. In addition, it was found that the majority of the participants were eligible to use the concept of halal tourism in the literature while the participants who proposed the use of a different concept agreed on the concept of ‘Islamic Tourism’.