Nazatul Aqilah Sutrisno¹, Siti Sara Ibrahim^2* , Masrul Hayati Kamarulzaman³, Balkis Kasmon⁴, Mohd Hafiz Zainal Abidin⁵ and Aunkrisa Sangchumnong⁶

^1,2,3Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Negeri Sembilan Branch, Rembau Campus, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
²Institute for Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
⁴Department of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
⁵Acedemy of Contemporary Islamic Studies (ACIS), Universiti Teknologi MARA Negeri Sembilan Branch, Kuala Pilah Campus, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
⁶School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Suan Dusit University, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

The unique architecture of mosques and its heritage has attracted tourists and contributed to the growth of the tourism industry. However, this uniqueness is not enough to make mosque tourism stay relevant and grow in the tourism industry. Newer digital technologies are continually being introduced in this sector, rendering them increasingly accessible to a wider audience. Through an integration of the UTAUT Theory and TAM model, the study found that “Effort Expectancy (EE), Performance Expectancy (PE), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), and Social Influence (SI)” through Trust as the mediator, significantly influenced the Behavioural Intention (BI) in adapting digitalization in mosque tourism. Meanwhile, Trust was the mediating effect in between Facilitating Conditions (FC) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) insignificant to Behavioural Intention (BI) of mosque tourism digital platform credibility. This study is significantly important to facilitate the responsible growth of the mosque tourism industry looking at the current needs of digitalization approaches.

Keywords:
Digitalization
Mosque Tourism
Behavioral Intention
UTAUT Theory
TAM Model