HALAL TOURISM AND NEW GENERATIONS: THE INDONESIAN CASE

Purpose: It is twofold. Firstly, from a theoretical perspective, it is aimed to contribute to the clarification of what Halal tourism is, as a relatively new term. And next, taking the fact that this segment, under-researched till now, is catching increasingly expert’s attention, gathering an insight about the level of knowledge and mental schemes of new generations in a Muslim majority countries like Indonesia is our second objective, this of empirical character. Methodology: To achieve the first objective, a synthesis of the state of the art is presented. With regard to the second one, a survey among business university students was carried out in the Republic of Indonesia Findings: Halal tourism is a field of study in a very early stage. In spite of the ambiguity found, with a number of terms intended to designate the same concept, Halal tourism can be considered as the most appropriate to denote services designed to meet the needs of Muslim tourists, in accordance with their religious obligations. Concerning the empirical study, the mismatches between the literature and the perceptions declared by the sample of higher education students are identified. Practical implications: The observed lack of knowledge on this market between new generations in Muslim majority countries is clearly an obstacle for its development. Originality/value: This paper is intended to shed light on the concept of Halal tourism and perceptions about it, in an attempt to bridge the gap of empirical knowledge on this topic. This is the first work targeting university students in a Muslim majority country.