Luxury hospitality values regarding luxury hotels and the role of religious values in the Islamic market

Abstract

With about one and a half billion Muslim consumers who are greatly concerned about their religious values when buying products, it is surprising that there has been only limited attention to Muslims’ consumption behaviour. Due to distinctive cultures and consumer values, consumption behaviour has become heterogeneous, and this has caused more attention to be paid to understanding the influence of cultural dimensions, such as religious values, on luxury consumption behaviour. This study aims to further empirically validate the luxury value framework in a luxury hospitality context and assess additional influential values such as the religious values of the consumer. Thus, a questionnaire was formed to pursue this paper’s aim; this was statistically evaluated by a partial least square (PLS) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The four dimensions of the luxury value framework were confirmed and validated, and the influential role of religious values was empirically confirmed. Therefore, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to re-examine the luxury value framework in a different context, the first to empirically examine the luxury value framework in an Islamic context, and the first to empirically assess the impact of religious values on luxury consumption intention.

Keywords: Luxury value, Muslims’ consumption, Religious values, Islamic luxury market, Luxury hotel, Religious impact.