Perceived Environmental Value, Destination Image, and Tourist Loyalty: The Role of Tourist Satisfaction and Religiosity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic selected is relevant and topical and has received relatively little attention, and thus is worth pursuing. However, this paper is rather confused and confusing and it is not entirely clear what it is proposing to address. The literature reviewed is really a series of brief comments on one or two references for specific points, and not a proper comprehensive literature review. There are few major papers cited in the main research themes  and many of the references are either specifically in the context of halal tourism, and therefore should not be used to imply their results apply to tourism in general, as is often stated here. There is much more applicable literature in the major tourism journals rather than relying on somewhat peripheral journals for support for general comments on satisfaction, loyalty etc. There is insufficient detail given on the sampling methodology and what measurements of responses were used (Likert scale for example?), how exactly is loyalty defined and ascertained from the survey? This makes the discussion and conclusion of little value and there is no strong clear relationship evidenced to conventional theories and concepts. The role of religiosity is not discussed as one would expect from the title.  Lines 163-6 for example, are unclear and the final comment is simply not correct or supported by the main literature. The English writing is problematic and it needs to be carefully edited by English first language writers.

Author Response

Thank you for the fruitful comments. We have revised it  based on the reviewer's comment. Please see the attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I think that you have an interesting paper. However I have some doubts in some ponts. For instance I have doubts that "research that links the effect of perceived environmental values and destination image on tourist satisfaction was still limited" are you sure? Sustainability is more and more a proeminent construct and in my opinion there are a considerable number of studies that focus this relationship...(but I can be wrong) . Also in the introduction I suggest to clarify better the research problem and the purpose of the study. My impression is that the introduction is not very robust. Also in this section present the structuture of the paper, please.

Concerning literature review I think that in some parts you cite the same authors . Please avoid cite the same autors in lines in a row (see lines 144-148 for instance).

In the Discussion section I suggest you to add the term "Conclusion". In my opinion an article should have a conclusion section. Here also add the implications for theory and practise of your study.

Good work in the next steps!!!

Author Response

Thank you very much for the comments. We have refined the article. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

While reading this manuscript, I found it very interesting and enjoyed reading through it. However, the writing is at a fair level, needs English proofreading, and the concept is widely used. Recently, I think destination image and tourist loyalty is a widely common areas of tourism research. Hence, good justification and scholarly contribution are a must. This trend has continued over the past few years. In order to finish this kind of research, it is essential to determine the study's goals and the substantial contributions it will make. In my opinion, the methodology that was applied in order to support the research was quite interesting. In addition, I would like to make the following observations, which can help in improving the overall quality of this research:

1. The manuscript has high similarity. I advise the authors to resubmit after revising the manuscript along addressing the other comments.

2. What are the objectives/aims of this research? Please clearly mention it and justify it.

3. Why is it important to carry forward with this research?

4. It is advised that the author should present a clear Structural model to make it more readable.

5. What is the greater contribution of this research? Who will be benefited from this?

6. Needs English proofreading.

Author Response

Thank you fot the comments. We have revised the manuscript and please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript discusses the importance of destination image for tourist loyalty. The research theme is interesting and requires further investigation. However, in its present form, the manuscript should not be published, given that it includes mostly references to earlier contributions in this field, the results are very few (they are shown in the tables but do not appear in the results and discussion sections!), and the discussion is de facto an extension of the literature review. Furthermore, I am not completely convinced that the present manuscript differs significantly from the article by Zulvianti et al. (2022), which also explores the influence of perceived environmental value on tourist satisfaction (note that hypotheses H1 are the same in both papers; H3=H4; study area is the same in both cases). Therefore, I recommend rejecting the paper in this form. The following are detailed comments and suggestions for improving the manuscript if the authors wish to resubmit its revised version.

Main comments

Line 29 - Halal tourism is the main theme of your paper, but you give no definition of this subcategory of religious tourism. I would recommend to introduce the concept of Halal Tourism to the reader, for example, by referring to some of the many research articles devoted to this topic (e.g., Battour and Ismail, 2016; El-Gohary, 2016).

Lines 47-48 - There are two sentences that begin with "Some researchers", but you do not give any references to scholars and papers that would support your statements. The references are mandatory here.

Lines 51-52 - Are you sure that the influence of the environmental value on tourist satisfaction is poorly studied? Please consider the review of the literature included in this article. You refer to many earlier papers there.

Lines 71, 73, 76 - You refer here to the results of earlier studies, but without any references! Moreover, you state that the influence of religiosity on the tourist satisfaction and loyalty was poorly discussed, but see, for example, Preko et al. (2020).

Lines 88-91 and 145-148 - The same paper is referenced three times in a row. Consider referencing other sources. When you cite the same paper, it looks like there are few valuable contributions in the field, but this is not the case here.

Lines 91-93 - Please take a closer look at this sentence. You state that loyalty (lines 91-92) strongly affects tourism loyalty (line 93). This, of course, does not make sense.

Lines 111, 116, 123, 151 - Again, you make some statements here and even refer to other scholars, but without any references. This is not acceptable in scientific journals.

Lines 161-169 - In lines 51-52 you state that the topic is poorly studied, but now it seems that there are a few contributions to which you refer. Therefore, the introduction requires a significant revision.

Lines 175-180 - I do not understand this part of the manuscript. You refer to earlier studies by giving their titles without full citations?

Lines 229-230 - [2] have found that the destination image has a positive influence on tourist satisfaction. This is the answer to question H3. Why do you introduce this hypothesis in your manuscript then?

Line 286 - You describe the method here, but give no details regarding the study area. Why is it interesting to the international reader? If your study aims to stimulate halal tourism in West Sumatra and has no implications for other destinations, then it should be published in the local journal.

Lines 309-312 - The whole data analysis is summarised in four lines. This is definitely too brief an introduction to your methods. The reader gets few clues regarding the way in which the outcome of your study has been produced.

Lines 316-336 - This is the Results section, but you describe methods here! These lines should be moved to Methods (3.1 and 3.2). Note that the results will shrink to twenty lines (lines 340-360). This shows that your results are very scarce or are not described in detail.

Lines 366-381 - Note that this is not a discussion of the results, but apparently a part of a literature review. These statements are similar to those on lines 95-107.

Lines 393-407 - In my opinion, this is not a discussion of the results. This is a part of the literature review and should be moved to subchapter 2.2.

Lines 408-413 - This perfectly fits into the literature review, subchapter 2.3.

Lines 424-429 - For the third time (after lines 140-142 and 253-255) you define the religiosity here. As you can see, there are significant redundancies in the manuscript.

Lines 430-438 - You discuss here the earlier literature in the topic. Move this paragraph to subchapter 2.5.

Lines 442-443 - It seems that [26] answered the question you have asked here.

Note that you do not draw conclusions in your manuscript. I am not surprised given that most of your results fit better to the Methods sections, and the discussion of the results should be included in the literature review. However, in Table 5 you answered your questions. There are some results, but you do not discuss them accordingly in the Discussion section.

Editing issues

I am not a native, but I have a feeling that the text requires substantial editing and proofreading efforts. Below are comments related to the editing issues that are apparent in the manuscript.

Line 24 - Missing full stop at the end of the sentence.

Lines 64, 66 - Missing or misplaced full stop.

Lines 253-267 - Heavy editing is required here. This is the repetition from lines 140-150.

Line 344 - Table 5 - Please add an explanation for "Sign". You mean "significance" here, but the word "sign" has a different meaning.

References

Battour, M., & Ismail, M. N. (2016). Halal tourism: Concepts, practises, challenges and future. Tourism management perspectives, 19, 150-154.

El-Gohary, H. (2016). Halal tourism, is it really Halal?. Tourism Management Perspectives, 19, 124-130.

Preko, A., Mohammed, I., & Ameyibor, L. E. K. (2020). Muslim tourist religiosity, perceived values, satisfaction, and loyalty. Tourism Review International, 24(2-3), 109-125.

Zulvianti, N., Aimon, H., & Abror, A. (2022). The influence of environmental and non-environmental factors on tourist satisfaction in halal tourism destinations in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Sustainability, 14(15), 9185.

Author Response

Thank you for the comments. Please see the attachment for the revision.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

You have improved the paper considerably and I thank you for your work in rewriting sections of the paper and adding material and references. Above all, the English is now completely acceptable and this has significantly improved the clarity of the arguments made and the discussion of analysis and results. While there could be a stronger link made with other aspects of the relationships between tourism and religion, I consider the paper is now acceptable for publication. 

Author Response

Many thanks for the reviewer's comments. We really appreciate it.

Kind regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors.

Thank you to have in considerations my previous comments. However in the conclusion section I would like to see a connection with literature review. Please relate here your conclusions with literature review. Concerning the last section, I don´t understand what are the limitations of the study. What are they? Good work in the next steps!

Author Response

Many thanks for the fruitful comments. We have revised it based on the reviewer's comment.

Kind Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for addressing the comments and sending me the revised version. Good luck.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the comments. We really appreciate it.

 

Best Regards

Reviewer 4 Report

I am surprised to see a lot of changes made by the authors in the initial version of the manuscript. The references to relevant papers appear in the revised text in a scientific manner. The methods are described succinctly. The review of the literature is structured and clearly separated from the discussion. The Conclusions section is also present in the revised version of the manuscript. The results are still relatively few, at least when the text is concerned, but are accompanied by tables.

Given the above, I suggest that the manuscript be approved for publication after minor editing issues are resolved.

Editing issues

1) I would suggest placing the Conclusions section at the end of the text, after the "Limitations and Future Research" chapter.

2) Although you have organised the definitions of the religiosity and placed them in the literature review (lines 141-148), you still return to the definition of religiosity in the discussion (lines 400-406). I suggest the integration of these sentences with the earlier definition in the literature review.

3) The references. Note that the same article appears twice in your reference list: [1]=[36]. You probably also should check carefully the references in the text and sort them appropriately; for example, see "[3][4][2]" in line 32.

4) There are also minor typographic errors; for example, see the author list in line 4 and remove the superfluous comma.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the fruitful comments. We have refined it based on the reviewer's comments. Please see the attachment.

 

Kind Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Again, thank you to have in consideration my previous comments. Only two seggestions: when I said to relate your conclusion to literature review I would like to see here some citations... you continue to not have citations here. Note that your paper have two 5. sections. Correct it, please. Thank you.

Author Response

Many thanks for the comments. We really appreciate all constructive comments from the reviewer. We have revised them. Please see the highlight in the conclusion part and also numbering for subheading.

Kind Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx