IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i13p7861-d849486.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Segmentation of Religious Tourism by Motivations: A Study of the Pilgrimage to the City of Mecca

Author

Listed:
  • Tahani Hassan

    (Brunel Business School, Brunel University London, London UB8 3PH, UK)

  • Mauricio Carvache-Franco

    (Facultad de Turismo y Hotelería, Universidad Espíritu Santo, Samborondón 092301, Ecuador)

  • Wilmer Carvache-Franco

    (Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Guayaquil 09015863, Ecuador)

  • Orly Carvache-Franco

    (Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Administrativas y Empresariales, Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, Guayaquil 090615, Ecuador)

Abstract

The present study about the pilgrimage to Mecca aims to: (i) identify the motivational dimensions of the demand for religious tourism, (ii) determine the segments of the demand for religious tourism, (iii) establish the relationship between the segments and socio-demographic aspects, and (iv) establish the relationship between tourist segments and their satisfaction and loyalty in the religious tourism destination of Mecca. The research was carried out on pilgrims who had visited Mecca who lived in Bahrain, a country located on the Persian Gulf, where most of its population is Muslim. The sample consisted of 350 surveys obtained online. A factor and K-means clusters analysis were used to reduce and group the data. The results show three motivational dimensions: religious, social and cultural, and shopping. Additionally, there were also three segments of demand: the “Multiple motives,” with high scores in all the motivational variables, the “Passive tourists” with low levels of motivation and the “Religious,” with motivations in variables related to religion. The “Multiple motives” and the “Religious” segments had high satisfaction and loyalty levels. The results will serve as guides for the management of religious destinations and contribute to the academic literature on this subject.

Suggested Citation

  • Tahani Hassan & Mauricio Carvache-Franco & Wilmer Carvache-Franco & Orly Carvache-Franco, 2022. "Segmentation of Religious Tourism by Motivations: A Study of the Pilgrimage to the City of Mecca," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:13:p:7861-:d:849486
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7861/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7861/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luz, Nimrod, 2020. "Pilgrimage and religious tourism in Islam," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Elisa Alén & Nieves Losada & Trinidad Domínguez, 2016. "The Impact of Ageing on the Tourism Industry: An Approach to the Senior Tourist Profile," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 303-322, May.
    3. Amaro, Suzanne & Antunes, Angela & Henriques, Carla, 2018. "A closer look at Santiago de Compostela's pilgrims through the lens of motivations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 271-280.
    4. Nyaupane, Gyan P. & Timothy, Dallen J. & Poudel, Surya, 2015. "Understanding tourists in religious destinations: A social distance perspective," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 343-353.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jun Lee & Jeong-Joon Kim, 2023. "A Study on Market Segmentation According to Wellness Tourism Motivation and Differences in Behavior between the Groups—Focusing on Satisfaction, Behavioral Intention, and Flow," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Károly Németh & Mohammed Rashad Moufti, 2023. "Lava Flow Hazard and Its Implication in Geopark Development for the Active Harrat Khaybar Intracontinental Monogenetic Volcanic Field, Saudi Arabia," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kuo-Yan Wang, 2022. "Sustainable Tourism Development Based upon Visitors’ Brand Trust: A Case of “100 Religious Attractions”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-30, February.
    2. Rafael Robina Ramírez & Manuel Pulido Fernández, 2018. "Religious Experiences of Travellers Visiting the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Ahmed Abdel Fattah & Mary Eddy-U, 2022. "The unique twin approaches of Sufi Sheikhs and host-guest relationships at El Sayed Ahmed El-Badawy Mosque in Egypt," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2723-2750, August.
    4. Junkyu Park & Mark A. Bonn & Meehee Cho, 2020. "Sustainable and Religion Food Consumer Segmentation: Focusing on Korean Temple Food Restaurants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-19, April.
    5. Mauro Romanelli & Patrizia Gazzola & Daniele Grechi & Francesca Pollice, 2021. "Towards a sustainability‐oriented religious tourism," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 386-396, May.
    6. Xu, Da & Shang, Yunfeng & Yang, Qin & Chen, Hui, 2023. "Population aging and eco-tourism efficiency: Ways to promote green recovery," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1-9.
    7. I. A. Pikrammenos & Ch. Ntelopoulou, 2018. "Business model for sustainable development of alternative touristic services: case study the religious tourism," Business & Entrepreneurship Journal, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 7(2), pages 1-2.
    8. Feng Xu & Wenxia Niu & Shuaishuai Li & Yuli Bai, 2020. "The Mechanism of Word-of-Mouth for Tourist Destinations in Crisis," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    9. Graham, Anne & Kremarik, Frances & Kruse, Willy, 2020. "Attitudes of ageing passengers to air travel since the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    10. Dong Lu & Yide Liu & Ivan Lai & Li Yang, 2017. "Awe: An Important Emotional Experience in Sustainable Tourism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, November.
    11. Terzidou, Matina & Scarles, Caroline & Saunders, Mark N.K., 2017. "Religiousness as tourist performances: A case study of Greek Orthodox pilgrimage," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 116-129.
    12. Thowayeb H. Hassan & Ahmed Hassan Abdou & Shaimaa Taha & Mostafa A. Abdelmoaty & Amany E. Salem, 2022. "Religious Tourists’ Satisfaction with Services and Their Impacts on Spirituality in the Post-COVID-19 Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-15, October.
    13. Collins-Kreiner, Noga, 2020. "A review of research into religion and tourism Launching the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on religion and tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Fan, Jianshuang & Zhou, Lin & Zhang, Yan & Shao, Shuai & Ma, Miao, 2021. "How does population aging affect household carbon emissions? Evidence from Chinese urban and rural areas," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    15. Graham, Anne & Kruse, Willy & Budd, Lucy & Kremarik, Frances & Ison, Stephen, 2023. "Ageing passenger perceptions of ground access journeys to airports: A survey of UK residents," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    16. Hany Kim & Semih Yilmaz & Soyoun Ahn, 2019. "Motivational Landscape and Evolving Identity of a Route-Based Religious Tourism Space: A Case of Camino de Santiago," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-20, June.
    17. Kádár, Bálint & Gede, Mátyás, 2021. "Tourism flows in large-scale destination systems," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Ke Zhang & Victoria Labajo & Ignacio Ramos & Almudena González del Valle-Brena, 2021. "A Guest at Home: The Experience of Chinese Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-15, September.
    19. Wang, Shaohua & Blasco, Dani & Hamzah, Amran & Verschuuren, Bas, 2023. "Tourists and ‘philosophers’: Nature as a medium to consciousness and transcendence in spiritual tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    20. Puwei Zhang & Li Wu & Rui Li, 2023. "Development Drivers of Rural Summer Health Tourism for the Urban Elderly: A Demand- and Supply-Based Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-27, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:13:p:7861-:d:849486. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.