Cross-Cultural Differences

With the emergence of the global marketplace, cross-cultural differences are increasingly recognized as a key factor in successful marketing strategies (Lee & Harada, 2000). Prior studies conducted within various contexts have observed that tourist behavior is affected by cultural background (Chen, 2000; Crotts & Erdmann, 2000; Litvin, Crotts, & Hefner, 2004; Litvin & Kar, 2003). For example, cross-cultural differences have been found to affect the use of external information sources by Japanese, South Korean and Australian tourists traveling to the USA (Chen, 2000); the behavior of German and Japanese tourists traveling to the USA (Litvin et al., 2004); self-image in travelers departing from Singapore (Litvin & Kar, 2003); and the evaluation

Mansfield and Winckler (2008) contended that potential non-Arab tourism markets may have negative perceptions of Islamic countries as destinations due to religious behaviors such as strict codes of conduct. Hashim, Murphy and Hashim (2007) conducted a qualitative study to examine the web-based image of the Islamic/Muslim tourism destination Malaysia. They concluded that images of the Islamic/Muslim tourism destination are stimuli for visitors to form perceptions in the pleasure travel decision-making process, including the post-travel evaluation process. According to Blanke and Mia (2005), creatively targeted new markets, “particularly in Asia and ‘untapped’ parts of Europe”, will be the strategies for Islamic tourism destination (p.66). In exploring potential tourism markets, in addition to new geographic locations, the youth tourism market is considered a potential segment for Muslim tourism destinations. From an economic, social and cultural perspective, the youth tourism market has proved to be

Though Chen, Chen and Okumus (2013) already successfully demonstrated that the relationship existed between Muslim Destination Image and Travel Constraints, including the cultural constraint, there is still a shortage of evidence to confirm the degree of cultural influence resulting from different nationality perspectives. In the context of this paper, exotic refers to a destination where major cultural and religious differences exist between the traveler’s home country and the destination. Given the significant impact of behavior on selecting destinations, further investigation of destination perceptions and related constructs (e.g., constraints) from a cross-cultural perspective is warranted. In this study, the Muslim Destination Image and Travel Constraints will be surveyed among young Taiwanese and young American travelers after watching a Brunei Chinese/English official video to discover the change in Muslim Destination Image and Travel Constraints using cross-cultural