Exploring halal tourism-related factors that mitigate employees' job pursuit intention in halal hotels: The moderating roles of age and gender

An extensive review of the existing literature indicates a very limited amount of empirical investigation on the factors that mitigate employee job pursuit intention (JPI) in halal hotels. This paper therefore aims to investigate the impact of negative perceptions of halal tourism, suspicion toward halal tourism, and the future of halal tourism on employee JPI in halal hotels in Turkiye. The paper also examines the moderating roles of age and gender in built relationships. The data was collected from 520 employees working in hospitality companies. The research model tested via partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and multi-group analysis. The findings indicate that employees' negative perceptions of and suspicion toward halal tourism have a negative effect on their JPI in halal hotels. It was also found that age moderated the effect of suspicion toward halal tourism on JPI. The findings are discussed and the theoretical and practical implications are presented.