Purpose This paper aims to investigate the relationship between expectations of umrah visit, the two dimensions of motivation for umrah visit and attitude toward umrah visit using the expectation, motivation and attitude (EMA) model. The study aims to expand the domain of religious tourism and destination marketing by including the moderating role of gender and religiosity on the EMA model to investigate the pre-visit stage of Indonesian Muslim pilgrims. Design/methodology/approach An online survey for 299 potential Muslim pilgrims was conducted to test nine hypotheses. A multi-group moderation test with chi-square differences was conducted to test the moderation effect of gender and religiosity on the model. The construct of motivation begins with an open question. Findings The paper provides empirical insights on how the interrelationship between EMA. The results indicate that umrah visit expectations and umrah visit motivations have a significant positive relationship with the attitude toward umrah visit. Moreover, this study concludes that gender significantly moderates the relationship between umrah visit expectations and attitude toward umrah visit. Religiosity significantly moderates the relationship between umrah visit expectations and umrah visit motivations. Research limitations/implications The authors discovered three limitations. First, the construction of the research model only added two moderation variables in the EMA model. Second, many Muslim pilgrims have other situations that influence their decision to perform umrah. Third, although this study gathers Muslim pilgrims from all regions in Indonesia, fairly small sample size can influence the generalization of findings. Practical implications Managers should be focusing more on accommodating the religious needs of Muslim pilgrims. Although there was no gender difference in the relationship between expectations and motivations, managers still must be careful in creating and carrying out umrah programs and activities. To capture the market for male Muslims, priority should be given to promoting aspects of the culture and history of Islam when performing an umrah. Considering the important role of religiosity for market segmentation and to capture the market of Muslim pilgrims with low religiosity is by focusing more on the aspects of religious and spiritual motivation when performing umrah. Social implications By increasing umrah’s visit, umrah is now more in demand by the Muslim community because it is not only an alternate pilgrimage but also to improve the spiritual and religious individual and family. This is coupled with the increasing number of umrah travel agents and people’s lifestyles that make umrah a holiday choice with colleagues and family. With these advantages, prospective Indonesian Muslim pilgrims must be more selective and look for a broad range of information about umrah departures because many umrah travel agents do not yet have a permit and offer a cheap umrah departure. Also, prospective Muslim pilgrims must prepare themselves better by studying the terms and pillars of Umrah. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature on tourism marketing and religious tourism research by comparing gender and religiosity on EMA model.
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