Motivational, emotional and memorable dimensions of non-Muslim tourists’ halal food experiences

Purpose: This study aims to explore non-Muslim tourists’ general halal food preferences, motivations for tasting halal food during their recent trips, positive and negative emotions and memorable dimensions associated with their recent halal food experiences after returning from holiday. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected using the authors’ personal networks and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) using a questionnaire. An email containing a link to the questionnaire was sent to the authors’ personal networks and posted on MTurk in January 2021. Findings: Of the 311 non-Muslim respondents, more than half considered themselves as food neophiliacs and considered halal food experiences as imperative whilst travelling. However, tasting halal food was not a major travel motivation. Novelty and taste were the two main motivations for tasting halal food whilst at a tourism destination. Emotions elicited by halal food experiences focussed on “joy” and “love”. The proposed conceptual framework for memorable halal food experiences comprises several dimensions: taste, spending time with family and friends, novelty, quality and safety, hospitality, ambience (setting/servicescape) and experiencing others’ culture through food. Originality/value: This is one of the first studies to explore non-Muslim tourists’ motives, emotions and memorable dimensions of halal food experiences.