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This study aims to explore whether religiosity influences consumer purchase behavior among Muslim consumers in Pakistan.

An in-depth, semi-structured interview protocol was developed and administered to a sample of 90 participants, both male and female, across eight metropolitan cities of Pakistan. Professionals, university students and housewives were part of the sample. NVivo Version 11 was used for data analysis to answer the research questions raised in this study. Moreover, the purposive sampling method has been used in this research.

The behavior of consumers was found to vary with the degree of involvement and the degree of religiosity. Study findings are divided into three themes. Firstly, a high level of religiosity makes Muslim consumers follow the Islamic principles of food consumption, by evaluating the product ingredients, spending moderately and verifying a halal logo at the time of purchase. Secondly, a major theme is the view that religiosity has no influence on food consumption; it is more about individuals’ needs and priorities. Finally, the consumers’ overall perception of quality, product value, purity and health consciousness over-powers the concept of religiosity.

Because of its qualitative and exploratory nature, the generalizability of this paper is limited. In addition to that, this research is just focused on one Muslim country.

This study suggests that western food exporters may use religiosity and other factors as probable segmentation variables to effectively position their brands. Religious images and other factors may be highlighted in product packaging and communication campaigns by marketers to gain recognition and usage of western food and consumption among religious, Pakistani Muslim consumers. The output of this research may support prospective entrants into the food business; those interested in exploring the Asian consumer market. Findings from this study may also be helpful for those in the west interested in exploring Pakistan as an emerging consumer market.

The presence of western imported food may improve the quality of life by having more opportunities and healthier options for the nation. Western food products can also bring cultural convergence whereby the underdeveloped nation feels upgraded and modern. Moreover, if the western food products are certified halal, the product has a fair chance of adoption and penetration in the society. Also, the food products coming from the western world induces mindfulness, people are more aware about innovative and useful ingredients that can satisfy their taste buds, improve their health, increase their life expectancy and contented approach toward life.

Thus far, limited research has analyzed religiosity of an overwhelmingly Muslim population and its impact on consumer behavior. This study is a preliminary effort to provide a basic understanding of the behavior of Pakistani Muslims, who have been insufficiently investigated by marketing and consumer researchers. The intriguing results are to remind marketers that there are several factors that govern religiosity and lead to a purchase decision.

The usage and preference of western imported food in a Muslim-majority state signifies its importance and relevance in a specific culture. However, the inclination and preference toward imported food products must be backed by a strong motivation, when the religion of Islam does not permit overspending yet the amount spent on such imported food products is overwhelming. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore the motivation behind this behavior.

This is a qualitative study, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 90 participants comprising professionals, housewives and university students from eight cities in Pakistan, which represented different regions and demographic variables. These were Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad, Faisalabad and Larkana. The technique used to analyze the qualitative interview findings was thematic content analysis. To confirm the results, Leximancer software Version 4.5 was used to reanalyze and validate them. Moreover, the purposive sampling method has been used in this research.

The findings from the qualitative-focused interviews revealed that the product attributes of packaging with attractive colors, design, size, overall quality material, taste and labeling with maximum product information influenced their purchase behavior. The vast majority reported that food products coming from the west needed to be halal, and this is an important deciding factor for purchase. Also, the level of religiosity related to western imported food buying behavior varies from city to city, which itself an interesting finding from a Muslim-majority population. Brand trust, loyalty, satisfaction, subjective norms were influential factors for Muslim consumers’ purchase behavior.

This paper is qualitative in nature, and therefore, the generalizability of the study results is limited. Also, this study only focused on Muslim consumer buying behavior from a Muslim-dominated country.

This study is instrumental for western food producers and exporters, providing valuable information about the motives behind the purchase of western imported food products in Pakistan, and by extension, potentially in Muslim countries in general. The study’s findings would add value to the field of consumer behavior, in which little research has been conducted on the relationship between consumer motives in context with Muslims’ consumer behavior toward western imported food products.

The presence of western imported food products may give better options for consumers so that they can pick a quality product for their own and family usage. The placement of the halal logo and extra care of halal ingredients also assures the religious and cultural requirements, enabling the western imported food products to penetrate quickly.

The findings of the qualitative-focused interviews revealed that the level of religiosity varies from city to city. Even though the core religion is Islam, the level of religious commitment varies in different cities when it comes to the purchase of western imported food products. The interview findings discovered some reasons behind this behavior such as consumer demographic profile, cultural background, income level, education, lifestyle, family background and social class. This means that demographic variation plays an important role in religious commitment and especially across cites that possess different cultural and behavioral patterns.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key attributes that drive Muslim consumer purchase behavior in the context of imported Western food in Pakistan.

In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used as a data collection tool. In this research, the in-depth interview data were analysed by using the manual content analysis (MCA) technique. Moreover, Leximancer software was used to reanalyse the data to enhance the trustworthiness of the MCA results. A total sample of 43 Muslim consumers from three metropolitan cities in Pakistan participated in the research. The sample comprises professionals, housewives and both college and university students.

Muslim consumers in Pakistan look at both the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes when purchasing imported Western food. The ruling factors explored were product taste, ingredients, freshness, hygiene, brand name and overall product quality. However, product packaging and labeling also play a significant role. Participants were of the view that imported Western food provides a better, unique consumption experience and an opportunity to choose from a wide variety of food options. Interestingly, interview findings reveal that Western food product attributes surpass the Islamic concept of moderate spending, thus convincing Muslim consumers to engage in the consumption of imported Western food.

The presence of imported Western food may improve quality of life by having more opportunities and healthier options for the nation. If the Western food products are stamped Halal or made with Halal ingredients the product has a fair chance of adoption and penetration in the society. Further, it may result in overall health improvements within the society, which is already a major concern in the Pakistani consumer market. Also, food products coming from the Western world induces mindfulness; people are more aware about innovative and useful ingredients that can satisfy their taste buds.

This paper found that Pakistani Muslim consumers are not really concerned about the Islamic concept of moderate spending, and thus, established that Pakistani Muslim consumers are more concerned about product value rather than their Islamic teaching of moderate spending. From a population, with 97 per cent Muslim majority, product packaging and labeling were found to be a dominant and deciding factor, which, in itself, is an interesting finding. Further, established Western brand names help Muslim consumers to recognize products and plays a vital role in their purchase decisions. However, within product labeling, the element of halal ingredients was found to be a deciding factor, but not a leading factor, in purchase decisions.

Consumer behavior in tourism (CBT) is an interdisciplinary field of study encompassing the basic behavioral and economic sciences (e.g., psychology, sociology, and economics) and applied fields of study (e.g., management, marketing, tourism, and hospitality) focusing on all aspects of discretionary travel. This chapter describes major issues and findings in the literature relating to CBT. The chapter directs the reader’s attention to some of the highly-cited studies in this literature – these studies provide a foundation of knowledge on the central topics, issues, methods, findings, and theoretical/practical contributions in research on CBT. Research studies in CBT focus on one-to-all five core theoretical issues in basic and applied fields of study: describe who is doing what, when, where, how, and the consequences of the activities; explain the meanings of activities and motivations of the actors; predict (model) what actions and outcomes will occur and the impacts of influence attempts before, during, and after engaging in tourist actions; control (influence) the beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and assessments of tourists, local community members, and additional stakeholders; evaluate tourism service/product delivery, tourism management performance, and customer satisfaction. Survey research using verbal (written) responses to questions is pervasive and the most frequent method for data collection in CBT. Additional research genres in CBT include direct observations of tourism behavior with or without some oral questioning (unobtrusive studies, the long interview method (McCracken, 1988), use of “consumer culture theory”), participant observation including semester abroad and unpaid internships away from home, formal field experiments, and the study of secondary sources (e.g., photographs and writings in blogs and social media (e.g., TripAdvisor) reviews).

Although scientific methods are available for evaluating the impact of intervention programs (e.g., plant growth of alternative seeds and soil treatments; consumer purchases of alternative prices, brands, and products; reforms such as regulations requiring wearing helmets by motorcycle riders), tourism marketing programs fail to use these methods. Traditional “conversion studies” – estimating the rate inquiries from tourism advertising convert into visitors by asking samples of inquirers if they visited – have fatal flaws in measuring whether or not the advertising caused visits to the destination that otherwise would not have occurred. The failure to stop doing traditional conversion studies to measure whether or not advertising causes visits appears to be an example of ignorance of ignorance, that is, tourism marketing executives do not have the knowledge and skills for applying effective methods to estimate the effectiveness of marketing and advertising's influence on causing visits, and they are unaware of their ignorance. What to do? New technologies in delivering advertising is decreasing the costs and efforts of using scientific methods for measuring advertising and marketing's impact on visits. Large, unobtrusive, scientific field experiments are appearing in the literature in the second decade of the 21st century. Good news at last?

“Country-collectors” (CCs) are defined here as international leisure travelers who have visited 6 +  countries within the five most recent calendar years primarily to pursue leisure activities. The study here contributes by offering an early workbench model of antecedents, paths, and outcomes of country-collectors’ evaluations and behavior toward countries as place-brands competing for such visitors. This study reports findings from a large-scale omnibus survey in three large Japanese cities (total n = 1,200). Key findings support the model and the following conclusions. Generally, country-collectors represent a small share of a nation’s adult population (less than 5%) but over 40% of the total leisure trips abroad; country-collectors are classifiable into distinct sub-segments according to the country place-brands that they visit; CC sub-segments, less frequent international leisure travelers, and stay-in-country travelers and non-travelers each offer unique assessments of competing countries as place-brands. National place-brand strategists planning a marketing campaign to influence a given nation’s residents to visit a specific destination (e.g., persuading Japanese nationals to visit the United States) may increase the campaign’s effectiveness by using this workbench model. The study offers a blueprint of how to appraise strengths and weaknesses of competing national place-brands among realized and potential visitors in specific national markets.

The study here helps to fill the gap between the current practices of management performance audits for firms and government agencies. The study advances recent theories of program evaluation and marketing management auditing. While the application in this chapter refers to government agencies managing destination marketing programs (tourism agencies), the algorithmic model construction is applicable for all management audits. The study applies the perspectives from two streams of theory to describe five relevant activities for managing destination marketing programs: scanning, planning, implementation, assessing, and administering. The analysis proposes impact assessments to improve management performances of DMOs via checklists for assessing the quality of information in tourism-management performance audits. Checklists can serve as a management tool by management performance auditors and by DMO executives to enhance the quality in executing destination marketing programs. A meta-evaluation of 10 tourism management audit reports identifies good and bad practices. The findings indicate that substantial improvements are possible in the practice of DMO’s management performance auditing, and the proposed checklist may ensure both high quality performance audit reports and improved performances in DMO practices.

This study strives to better understand resistance to chatbots in the banking sector. To achieve this, it proposes a model based on the paradigm of resistance to innovation and the complexity theory. In addition, it explores the role of gender in relation to chatbot resistance.

Data are collected in France using a snowball sampling technique. The sample is composed of 385 participants. FsQCA is used to identify all possible combinations of usage, value, risk, tradition and image barriers, as well as two gender conditions that predict resistance to chatbots.

The results reveal that the sample provides four possible solutions/combinations that may explain resistance to chatbots. These are: (i) a combination of usage, value, risk and tradition barriers, (ii) a combination of value, risk, tradition and image barriers, (iii) a combination of usage, value, risk and image barriers, along with the male gender and (iv) a combination of usage, value, tradition and image barriers, along with the female gender.

This study provides valuable and straightforward theoretical and managerial implications. The proposed solutions suggest a deep understanding of chatbot resistance. Chatbot developers and marketers can highly benefit from these findings to enhance user acceptance.

In this study, barriers are envisioned within the larger context of innovation resistance. The interactions among barriers causing resistance to chatbots are examined through the lens of the complexity theory, while the data analysis employs the fsQCA approach. Furthermore, this study sheds light on the role of gender in explaining chatbot resistance in the banking sector.

This research uses interpretive phenomenology to investigate the effect of visitor–destination interactions and image formation. It seeks to understand the processes that lead the visitor to make sense of his destination experience for her/himself and to others, and transmit that image through his story. A subjective personal introspective SPI and longitudinal observation have been used to collect data and acquire an insider perspective on the image of France as a place experienced by an Asian researcher who is living, experiencing, working, visiting, and traveling in France. The results of this research tend to move the understanding of destination image formation forward by taking a holistic approach that allows researching personal image perception and construction from genuine insider perspective as it is qualified by the individual within his own experiences. The main contribution of this research is to show how the image of a destination might evolve from a tourism destination to a mundane consumption place. This idea emphasizes the transformation of a tourist to a nontourist consumption place.