Ramadan: The month of fasting for Muslims, and tourism studies — Mapping the unexplored connection

• Islamic worldview expands tourism studies by studying the full spectrum of pilgrims.
• Interior pilgrimage is a useful concept in relation to tourism studies.
• Ramadan — the fasting month for Muslims is explained adding to seasonality and events literature.
• The impact of interior pilgrimage on tourism studies is a vast area of research, awaiting further exploration.

This study supplies the Islamic worldview to the tourism literature in order to expand the current denotations associated to key words such as ‘travel’, ‘traveler’ and ‘pilgrimage’. It explores the month of fasting for Muslims: Ramadan, and its association to pilgrimage. The findings of the study indicate that Ramadan being the month of interior pilgrimage offers a strong link to the deep rooted connection between pilgrimage and tourism studies and is a promising area of exploration in conjunction with the unmapped link of interior pilgrimage and tourism studies. The study unearths Ramadan seasonality and Ramadan events in the settings of United Arab Emirates where currently during the Ramadan seasonality the interior pilgrims are facilitated by community events that are largely organized by the relevant tourism authorities. The study proposes further areas of research with reference to: interior pilgrimage, Ramadan seasonality and community events.

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