Halal certification for tourism marketing: the attributes and attitudes of food operators in Indonesia Norliza Katuk and Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud School of Computing, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia Kalsom Kayat Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia Mohd. Noor Abdul Hamid School of Creative Industry Management and Performing Arts, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia Nur Haryani Zakaria School of Computing, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia, and Ayi Purbasari Department of Technical Information, Universitas Pasundan, Bandung, Indonesia Abstract Purpose – Halal tourism is a subset of tourism activities geared towards Muslim which are aligned with the Islamic principles. As a response to this, many food operators have realised the importance of having a halal certification to establish a better market position. In the context of Indonesia, it is yet to be known what attitudes the food operators have towards halal certification and what attributes characterised those who have obtained the certification. Therefore, this study aims to examine the attributes of food operators and their attitudes towards halal certification in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach – A survey and structured interview were conducted on 298 food operators in Bandung, a city in Indonesia, between August and December 2018. Seven hypotheses were proposed and tested to evaluate the association between halal certification and food operators’ attributes and their attitudes towards it. Findings – The results of the study suggested that food operators who had halal certification can be characterised by the number of branches the businesses have, the knowledge of halal tourism and knowledge on the market segment. However, the age of their business was found not related to halal certification. In terms of attitudes, the study found that performance beliefs, intention to apply and target market segment had associated with halal certification. Practical implications – The outcomes of the study could provide information to entities and agencies involved in the tourism industry that consider targeting Muslim travellers as their market segment. Halal certification could be an approach to facilitate tourism marketing and consequently increase the performance of food-related business sectors. The authors would like to thank Universiti Utara Malaysia and Universitas Pasundan for the Matching Grant S/O code 14061, and Research and Innovation Management Centre, Universiti Utara Malaysia, for the administration of this study. Halal certification for tourism marketing Received 5 March 2020 Revised 10 April 2020 Accepted 13 April 2020 Journal of Islamic Marketing © Emerald Publishing Limited 1759-0833 DOI 10.1108/JIMA-03-2020-0068 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1759-0833.htm brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Repository