Muslim perspectives on spiritual and religious travel beyond Hajj: Toward understanding motivations for Umrah travel in Oman

For decades, religious tourism has played a major part in attracting travellers to sacred sites for the performance of rituals. Within the Muslim World, there are two types of religious-related travel: Hajj and non-Hajj. This paper takes a quantitative survey-based approach to explore Muslim pilgrim travel motives beyond the Hajj season. Umrah is a pilgrimage that Muslims undertake at any time of the year except during the time of Hajj. Thankfulness to a higher power (Allah in Islam) is revealed as the main reason for undertaking Umrah. Other useful findings related to the most important daily spiritual/religious practices and the perceived spiritual/religious beliefs for Omani Umrah travellers are reported. This article opens up new perspectives on non-Hajj travel of Muslim pilgrims and discusses the implications and future research directions for this cohort of travellers.