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There are very few studies that consider the relationship between sociocultural identities and tourists’ destination choices, in which almost none focusing on the education tourism context. The objective of this research was to examine the effect of national identity, consumer cosmopolitanism and consumer ethnocentrism on international study destination choice. One hundred and twenty questionnaires were distributed to final year high school students, with a usable response rate of 75.83%. The data were analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The study found a significant positive effect of consumer cosmopolitanism on students’ intention to study in Australia based on their perceived image of the destination and institutions. Contrary to the proposed hypothesis, national identity had a significant positive effect on the destination image of Australia.

The growing number of international students worldwide stimulates the need to understand the factors influencing students’ decision-making process. This study aims to examine the influence of sociocultural identification on students’ intention to study in Malaysia by applying social identity theory. It also tests the mediation effect of destination and institution images in the relationship between sociocultural identification and students’ intention. Due to the tendency of individuals to maintain self-congruity in making tourism decision, this research will contribute to the tourism literature by providing insights on the effect of national identity, consumer cosmopolitanism, and consumer ethnocentrism on education tourism decision. This research applied the multistage cluster sampling technique by collecting data from senior high school students in eight provinces in Indonesia. From more than 1,000 questionnaires distributed, 888 responses could be used in the analysis. Data were analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling. This study found that national identity, consumer cosmopolitanism, and consumer ethnocentrism were interrelated. The results showed that national identity might affect students’ intention only through destination and institution images. On the other hand, consumer cosmopolitanism and consumer ethnocentrism had direct and indirect effects on students’ intention to study in Malaysia respectively.

The main economic issues faced by the registered Malaysian homestay program are the issues of competition from unregistered homestays, local community employment and the tourism multiplier effect of homestays. This research investigates the relationship between destination competitiveness, employment and multiplier effect and homestay sustainability from the homestay owners' perspective. The objective of this study is to measure homestay sustainability using destination competitiveness, employment, and the multiplier effect. Survey questionnaires were given to the 254 homestay owners using cluster sampling method. To analyze the data, Partial Least Square (PLS) approach to Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used. The findings of this study confirm the significant relationships between destination competitiveness and multiplier effect with homestay sustainability. The most important finding is that the homestay owner confirms that the unregistered homestays are not a threat to the competitiveness of the registered homestay program. Secondly, registered homestays do have the multiplier effect and provide a steady financial overflow to the homeowners' and the other stakeholders within the local community. The findings also suggest no significant relationship between employment and homestay sustainability.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of Halal values and attitude on marketing program adaptation. A self-administered survey has been distributed to a sample of 110 Malaysian Halal exporters that involved in variety of product categories. The results of SEM-PLS analysis show that Halal values and attitude have significant and positive influence on the marketing program adaptation. The study was limited to the examination of the socio-cultural factors pertinent to the Halal industry on the adaptation strategy of marketing program among Malaysian exporting firms that dealing with Halal certified products. In practice, the understanding of the role of Halal values and attitudes on marketing program adaptation will contributes to exporters and policy makers in their efforts to improve marketing effectiveness and export performance of Halal products in global Halal market through the development of product that is closely adapted to export market specificity. In theory, the investigation of standardization versus adaptation issue in Halal market has contributed to the body of knowledge of international marketing strategy by adding single industry values.

Institutional sustainability issues within the Malaysian homestays product over the last 30 years include lack of governance and leadership issues. This research intends to test the relationship between three institutional sustainability indicators namely; flexibility, self-organization, and power-sharing against homestay sustainability from the government perspective. The concept of homestay sustainability and stakeholder theory underpins this study. Survey questionnaires were collected from 115 government officials to fill out based on a five-point Likert scale. The sampling strategy is convenience sampling, and the data was analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. The findings of the study confirm the significant relationship between flexibility, self-organization and power-sharing and homestay sustainability.

Rapid development in the tourism industry has created new challenges for tourism marketers. In the climate of growing competition, one of the major tasks for destination marketing specialists lies within the area of building an effective destination positioning strategy and the core element of this positioning mechanism is creating a positive image of the destination. Therefore, an understanding of what constitutes destination image that leads to tourist satisfaction and loyalty can help the nation to formulate marketing strategies and better position itself as a competitive destination. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise the underlying dimensions of destination image that can influence tourist satisfaction and loyalty. Theoretically, this paper contributes to the body of knowledge by emphasising key antecedents affecting tourist behaviour. Practically, the research findings are of suggestive value to image building and destination planning for Malaysian tourist destinations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether producers, dealers and agents of the Cosmetic and Toiletries Industries in Malaysia are implementing Islamic marketing practices in producing and selling their products. There is growing consciousness to conduct business in accordance to the rules and principles of Islam whereby halal products and services are gaining importance in many industries. The Islamic consumer market is huge and producers are beginning to realise its importance. This study employed the descriptive research method and non-probability sampling technique whereby data were collected through questionnaires distributed to a sample population in Klang Valley. The results show that self and social perspective and marketing scenario to have a significant impact on marketing practices. The study reveals that most of the marketing mix of product and distribution (place) strategy are being practised according to Islamic rules.

This article examines the applied dimensions of relationship marketing, namely, customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, personalization, customization, and brand/store community with different customer retention levels in three retail stores in Malaysia. The relationship between customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, customization, personalization, and brand/store community with customer retention were examined via an empirical investigation of 450 loyalty/reward program members of three retail stores in Malaysia. The survey was personally administered but self-completed. All variables, namely, customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, customization, personalization, and brand/store community, were able to significantly discriminate between high and low customer retention levels. Retail managers in a developing country like Malaysia must be aware of the importance of these applied dimensions of relationship marketing (i.e., what can be done or practiced by the retailer to manage and enhance customer relationships) and how they impact customer retention levels.

Earlier research on service guarantees have evidenced the importance of service guarantees, their positive relationship with the firm, enhance customer’s perception and act as a tool to the service quality. The objectives of this study were to examine the relationship between hotel star, service guarantees and customer satisfaction in the luxury hotels in Malaysia. The study wished to explore if hotel star has significant relationship with employee perception and service guarantees and employee perception toward customer satisfaction. The study investigates these relationships from the front-line hotel employee perspective. The study conducted survey and delivered the questionnaires to the front-line employees. The findings indicated that hotel star has strong influence on service guarantees offered by hotels and it has moderate relationship with customer satisfaction. The result showed that customer has almost same level of satisfaction when staying at four or five star hotels due to similar service offerings. Based on the findings, implications for hotel and customers are discussed and further research is suggested.

Urbanisation, population growth and increasing affluence have had a significant impact towards climate changes and environmental challenges. Generally speaking, there is a reversed relationship between the advancement in human development and the state of the environment. The world shares similar concerns and worries pertaining to the environmental changes, and various initiatives, legislative framework, reward mechanisms and investments have taken place to combat and address the immense environmental consequences. However, the return of the effort is unsatisfactory, judging from the upward trend of greenhouse gas emission, exhausted natural resources, biodiversity loss and natural disasters. Initiatives at the macro level lack the magnetic effects and disconnect from the grassroots and masses. This study is therefore to extend existing body of knowledge in understanding the nexus of pro-environment behaviours adoption from following perspectives (a) Individual engagement with society based on pro-environmental activities for fulfilling social needs, where the social activities will enable one to enjoy the social gathering by interacting with other members; (b) Empowerment and efficiency in realizing desired collective benefit through an ethical community as compared to acting individually. Moreover, collective action is able to ensure transparency, authenticity and reliability as the community is operated systematically; and (c) Diffusion of sustainable behaviour through interaction, knowledge and experience sharing among members. Ethical community serves as a platform for members to sought guidance when they are trapped in ethical dilemma. This paper is aimed at facilitating subsequent strategic action plans development from policy makers and marketers, to strengthen links between producers and environmental-conscious users, which subsequently cultivate environmental-friendly lifestyle.

Empirical research and opinion polls make it evident that environmental awareness, consciousness and concerns are highly registered, and pro-environment behaviour adoption is the function of the said factors; moreover marketers are active to adopt pro-environmental marketing strategies and environmental appeals to contribute in addressing these environmental issues. However, various symptoms, such as licensing and rebound effects signifies pro-environmental behaviours are not sustained in different spatial and temporal dimensions, and does not spill over to a wide range of activities, resultant of minute improvements on the environment. Thus, this study aims to expand the knowledge domain by examining the moderating effect of individuals’ psychology factors on attitude-sustainable behaviours relationship, and subsequently in sustaining the consistency of attitude-sustainable behaviours relations. The overriding research objective is twofold, (i) to examine the moderating effects of personal characteristics (age, gender and education) as a social stimulus in diffusing sustainable behaviours, and (ii) to identify factors to sustain attitude-sustainable behaviours relationship. Through the understanding of latent factors that drive sustainable behaviours, it will provide insights for various stakeholders in enhancing managerial discretion, or latitude of action, coupled with concomitantly greater organisational variety for more pronounced and sustainable behaviours ecologically, culturally, socially, economically and politically.

Mobile technologies and services are envisioned as the possible driving force that will create a variety of business opportunities. The objective of the present study is to determine the major factors that contribute towards customer’s intention to adopt mobile banking as electronic-financial services among commercial banks in Saudi Arabia. The research uses primary data and the unit of analysis is individuals who are non-users of mobile banking services. The study questionnaires were distributed to samples throughout Saudi Arabia concentrating on major cities. Four hundred and three valid responses were received and analyzed through multivariate analysis process using Structural Equation Modelling. The study shows that Mobile Phone Experience and Awareness of Service are critical in the comprehension of the technology and its related functionality and benefits while the lack of knowledge and information maximizes the perception of risk. The results also reveal that Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy and Perceived Risk are major predictors for adopting mobile banking services in the initial adoption stage. The principal conclusion is that mobile banking services should offer innovative services compared to existing competition services in a similar area, i.e. electronic-banking services. As demonstrated, differentiation can be attained by encompassing more benefit factors than sacrifice factors that create perceived value of adopting mobile banking services in the future.

After so many years, the Malaysian mobile service market is getting saturated, whereby service operators are having difficulties differentiating themselves because they offer similar services. As the service options are wide, customers become less committed to a particular provider and might easily shift from one operator to another. This situation forces the service providers to create a strategy that focuses more on gaining and retaining long-term relationships with their customers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the underlying dimensions of relationship marketing in the Malaysian mobile service sector. A sample of 300 customers in Klang Valley was drawn using scientific procedures of mall intercept, and structural equation modeling was utilized in testing the proposed model. The results show that the relationships between the exogenous latent factors and the overall endogenous factor are significant, ranging from.77 to.94. This illustrates that a relatively high proportion of the variance in relationship marketing is well explained by each of the factors.

Delivering high quality service to the passengers is imperative so that airline companies can survive and strengthen their competitiveness. Even though there have been extensive research on service quality and customer loyalty in the past, little study has been conducted in this specific area. Hence, this paper aims to propose a conceptual framework on service quality and its relationship towards customer loyalty among Malaysia’s domestic low cost airline services passengers. Reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance and empathy are considered as critical dimensions of service quality that possibly provide empirical evidence in relation to customer loyalty. Subsequently, the consequences of the customer loyalty are further elaborated in this paper too. It is expected that the findings of this study can assist the organization to deliver high service quality to the customers and enhancing customers’ satisfaction in fulfilling their needs and wants. More importantly, improving service quality in such an organization may result in long-term increase in customer’s loyalty; this in turn leads to cost savings and improved profitability and market share.

This article focuses on the key relationship marketing tools of customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, brand/store community, personalization and customization, and their relationship with customer retention. The relationship between customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, customization, personalization, brand/store community and customer retention were examined via an empirical investigation of 450 loyalty/reward program members of three retail stores in Malaysia. The administration of the survey was personally administered but self-completed. Four of the five relationship marketing tools, namely, customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, brand/store community and personalization, had a significant positive relationship with customer retention. The findings provided valuable insights into the loyalty program management practices of retail stores in a developing country context.

Customer’s value perception is a subjective concept in banking services. Value perception varies among bank customers. Despite the availability of technologically advanced mobile devices, mobile banking services, which use these devices, have not been widely accepted by the customers. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate various factors affecting the value held by bank customers in driving their behavioural intention to use mobile banking services. The findings from this study may enable banks which seek to promote competitive advantage to examine all factors related to perceived value in order to improve customer value of mobile banking service and consequently their intention to adopt.

Despite the numerous benefits of the implementation of service guarantees in service organizations, there is a dearth of studies that explore the relationship between service guarantees, empowerment, employee satisfaction and service quality, particularly in the hotel industry. The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between service guarantees and employee empowerment and to investigate the correlation between empowerment and employee satisfaction and establish its links to service quality. This study employed the quantitative methodology based on survey questionnaires distributed to frontline employees in various four and five star hotels in Malaysia. The empirical findings provide evidence that service guarantees have a positive relationship with empowerment. However, the study found that empowerment has an insignificant relationship with employee satisfaction. Notably, it was found that employee satisfaction has a significant relationship with service quality. The study’s limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This study empirically investigates the relationship between service guarantee and employee motivation in four and five star hotels in Malaysia. The analysis reported useful findings which provide further insights in service guarantee domain. Empirical evidence showed that service guarantee has no positive relationship with empowerment but it has significant impact to employee motivation. Thus, hotel industry must make employee motivation a high priority. Findings of the study will provide useful insights on the importance of service guarantee implementation in order for hotel industry to improve service quality and enhance employees’ performance.

After so many years, the Malaysian mobile service market is getting saturated whereby the service operators had difficulties to differentiate themselves since they had offered almost the same services. As the service options are wide, therefore customers become less committed to a particular provider and might easily shift from one operator to another. This situation forces the service providers to create a strategy that focuses more on gaining and retaining long term relationship with their customers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the underlying dimensions of relationship marketing in the Malaysian mobile service sector. A sample of 300 customers is drawn using Mall Intercept Scientific Procedures around Klang Valley and the Structural Equation Model (SEM) is utilized in testing the proposed model. The results show that the relationship between the exogenous latent factors and the overall endogenous factor are significant ranging from 0.77 to 0.94. That is, relatively high proportion of the variance in relationship marketing are well-explained by each of the factors.

Marketing halal products in an international setting warrants additional care not only in meeting the specificity of the target markets but also in securing the 'halalness' aspect of the products. In relation to product attributes, Muslim consumers particularly are more sensitive to the integrity of the halal status than other quality aspects of the product. As Islamic values are attached to products, the religious attributes of halal products are expected to play a role in influencing the implementation of the export marketing strategy. Based on face-to-face interviews with the experts from Mufti, HDC and MATRADE office, and also halal food exporters, the qualitative findings have revealed two main dimensions of halal product attributes and seven emerged themes on the export marketing strategies. The findings have given some thought on the development of the export marketing theory, specifically on the marketing programme adaptation in the context of the halal industry.

The objective of this study is to explore three dimensions of trust that affect consumers’ attitude towards online shopping and online shopping intention in Malaysia. Data was collected from students’ samples in Malaysia. SEM (Structural Equation Model) was used to test the hypotheses and confirmed the fit of the model. The researcher found that there are only two factors for explaining attitude towards online shopping, which are integrity and ability; and there is no significant in consumers’ attitude towards online shopping based on benevolence; however, there is a relationship between attitude toward online shopping and online shopping intention.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on attitudes toward foreign products among consumers in Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires were developed and distributed based on convenient sampling. Measures were adopted from previous literatures. The higher the consumer ethnocentric tendencies are, the more reluctant they are to purchase foreign products. Consumers who are high in ethnocentric tendencies show less sense of global openness. This study contributes towards the consumer ethnocentrism literature as the findings did concur with findings from western samples. As reflected in the Malaysian consumers’ sample, strong ethnocentric sense was accounted for but traded off by the lack of sense of global openness.

Product attribute is one of the most important criteria in consumers’ purchase decision making. This study examines consumers’ perceptions on the essential quality attributes of fresh produce. For this purpose, 1,562 usable responses were analysed. Findings show that quality product attributes such as absence of defect, absence of blemishes, ripeness, freshness, absence of pesticides, absence of preservatives, nutritional value and cleanliness are consistently rated as important for both fruits and vegetables.

Stiff competition in the service market forces service firms looking for the best approach to attract and create a group of loyal customers. Relationship marketing is a strategy used by many service providers to maintain long-term relationship. Moreover, relationship quality is the manifest of successful relationship marketing activities. Good implementation of relationship marketing strategy can be seen from good relationship quality built between customer and service provider. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between relationship quality and loyalty across service types (Credence services versus Experience Services). In this study, relationship quality dimensions consist of interpersonal factors (closeness, communication, communication quality and special care) and firm factors (commitment, trust and satisfaction). The findings revealed that relationship quality influenced the loyalty in both service types. Importantly, all dimensions of relationship quality have different magnitude of influence on relationship quality in both credence services and experience services; with “commitment” has the strongest influence and “communication quality” as the weakest dimension. To sum up, in developing good relationship quality, the service provider should focus on both firm factors as well as interpersonal factors.

The focus of businesses has shifted from acquiring new customers to placing greater emphasis on retaining customers through relationship marketing. However, currently, there is limited knowledge on Relationship Marketing Instruments (RMIs) that are appropriate in managing customer relationships. This paper aims to explore and empirically test the dimensions of RMIs that are appropriate in managing customer relationships. First, it reviews the concept of RMIs and its important dimensions, followed by reports on the construction and validation of the measure of RMIs. The existing literature on this topic have hypothesized five dimensions of RMIs; however, an exploratory factor analysis discovers that RMIs consist of eight dimensions. The final part of the paper discusses the implications of the findings and directions for future research.