Debating Halal Tourism Between Values and Branding: A Case Study of Lombok, Indonesia

This paper discusses the debate concerning the concept of "Halal" tourism by exploring the case of Lombok, Indonesia as a Halal tourist destination. Halal tourism has become a new trend in global tourism motivated by the growing number of Muslim travelers. This condition potentially brings substantial foreign earnings from tourism sector. Indonesia, as a country with the largest Muslim population in the world is also interested to follow the trend. In 2015, Lombok participated in the World Halal Tourism Summit held in Dubai and was awarded the "World Best Halal Tourist Destination" and the "World Best Halal Honeymoon Tourism." This has motivated the local government to develop Halal tourism seriously. However, there is no concrete concept concerning the kind of Halal tourism to be developed. In the condition of "Halal tourism in the making" in Lombok, this research explores the available concept of Halal tourism in the literature, and tries to match the ideas with the practices of Halal tourism that is being developed in Lombok. This paper argues that Lombok tends to develop branding-based Halal tourism than value-based Halal tourism. Findings from the fieldwork research show that the success of Lombok to be acknowledged as Halal tourist destination is not yet followed by the development of tourism institutions and infrastructures, which are fully oriented toward Halal tourism according to Islamic values.