Purpose Local foods from the perspective of tourism play a significant role to attract tourists. Surprisingly, empirical evidence on food tourism is quite scarce. The purpose of this paper is to develop and investigate a conceptual framework on tourist satisfaction, loyalty and word of mouth (WOM) to select local foods in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a quantitative approach while convenience (non-probability) sampling is used to collect a sample of 286 final responses using a survey-based questionnaire. The study employed exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to stabilize the factor structure. The conceptual model is then tested under the assumptions of structural equation modeling. Findings The findings indicate that food quality, perceived environmental quality, perceived value and service quality has a significant impact on the tourist’s satisfaction. However, interpersonal interaction quality shows an insignificant influence on satisfaction. Moreover, satisfaction has a significant impact on loyalty while loyalty further shows a significant effect on tourist WOM. Overall, the authors found satisfaction and loyalty are the major contributors to the hypothesized model. Practical implications The conceptual framework and study findings will support practitioners and researchers to understand the factors that influence a tourist’s selection of local foods. Additionally, the study provides a useful policy to gain long-term economic benefits for the tourism sector in Pakistan. Originality/value To the authors’ best knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore WOM behavior in tourism research focusing on the critical role of satisfaction and loyalty. The authors are certain that the findings will contribute significantly to the existing body of knowledge.

PurposeThe role of green human resource management in Islamic banking remains relatively unexplored. This study focuses on how green human resource management plays a part using intellectual capital and how green human resource improves employee commitment, eco-friendly behavior and environmental performance in Islamic banks.Design/methodology/approachThis paper integrated two well-established theoretical frameworks, namely, intellectual capital-based view theory and social identity theory. A survey-based research instrument was employed to collect sample data of 231 respondents. To test hypotheses, we considered partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)-based approach using SmartPLS.FindingsThe results indicate that green human capital, green structural capital and green relational capital significantly influenced green human resource management. Similarly, green human resource management showed a significant positive impact on employee commitment, eco-friendly behavior and environmental performance. Moreover, this study found significant positive results on the interrelationship between employee commitment, eco-friendly behavior and environmental performance. The outcomes recommend that Islamic bank HR managers and top management should strengthen green human resource management policies. Additionally, the Islamic bank HR department should consider bank intellectual capital and employee social identity while making environment-friendly policies.Originality/valueThis study provides novel contributions by offering some useful guidelines to Islamic bank managers and practitioners. In addition, our research aids general green human resource literature and adds value to promoting a sustainable organization.

The local and international communities play an important role in the sustainable growth of the Malaysian tourism industry. The principle of sustainable growth in the tourism industry was proposed by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) in 1988. As the tourism industry is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in Malaysia, the government has poured considerable effort into promoting this industry consistent with the objective of the Economic Transformation Program (ETP) to transform from a resource-based economy to a service-based economy. This study aimed to test the hypothesis of tourism-led growth from Malaysia’s perspective. The tourism revenue earned by the government can be used to invest in industry to further promote economic growth in Malaysia. Hence, tourist receipts and capital investment in the tourism industry are important factors that can affect the nation’s economic growth. Utilizing Malaysian data from 1995 to 2016, the study employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to examine whether the tourism-led growth is valid in this study. Empirical findings indicated that both variables have a significant positive impact on economic growth and the hypothesis of tourism-led growth is accepted in Malaysia.

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Past studies have shown that the formation of a destination image was usually perceived by tourists rather than local residents themselves. Hence, this paper aims to address the gap by demonstrating that the initial formation of cognitive and affective images of a rural tourism destination should be first investigated from its local residents' perceptions, not the tourists. In order to attain this goal, a model of destination images that place importance of the initial phase of destination image formation as perceived by its local residents was developed. A qualitative research was carried out using a sample of 100 local residents in Kampung Buntal, Sarawak, Malaysia, employing a sentence completion method, one of the projective techniques that are rarely used in mainstream destination image studies. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Results indicated that the three main cognitive images of Kampung Buntal were natural environment/touristic attractions, local people and ambience, and local infrastructure. The three main positive-affective images of Kampung Buntal were pleasant, arousing, and relaxing. Using this empirical finding, tourism developers or marketers could gain better insights on the right destination images that could capture the real essence of a rural destination during promotion and marketing.