Establishing Shariah-compliance hotel characteristics from a Muslim needs perspective

The purpose of this paper is to develop the characteristics of Shariah-compliance hotel (hereafter SCH) from the perspective of Muslim needs. SCH is a newly innovative services introduced by hotels to satisfy the Muslim travelers. Nonetheless, lack of study found in the current literature on SCH characteristics that has been developed base on Muslim needs and the implementation of SCH. This study focuses on developing a model of SCH and issues or challenges in implementing it. This is a preliminary study and uses in-depth, open-ended interviews through snowball sampling. Interviews were conducted with six experts in the hospitality industry and data were recorded, transcribed and categorized in order understand the issues of implementing SCH. The difficulties to obtain Halal certificate and the absence of SCH standard affected the practice of SCH in Malaysia. Along with this, two Malaysian Standards (MS1900:2005 & MS1500:2004) have been identified as a tool to implement SCH.