Prioritizing Muslim-Friendly Tourism Factors in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Transforming secular World Heritage sites into Muslim-friendly tourism destinations presents a resource-allocation dilemma between faith-based needs and conservation. In this study, the author developed a hierarchical model to prioritize success factors for Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Synthesizing judgments from 35 experts via a hybrid fuzzy analytic hierarchy process-ViseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (multi-criteria optimization and compromise solution) framework, the author identified halal infrastructure as the foundational mandate. Crucially, human resource development emerged as the second priority, outranking several tangible assets. Conducting research from a resource-based view perspective yielded results that demonstrate that in niche markets with high cultural distance, intangible capabilities, specifically cultural intelligence, serve as a more inimitable source of competitive advantage than replicable hardware. The study contributes a quantifiable road map for heritage managers to navigate trade-offs between market diversification and site integrity, and the author advocates for a capability-driven approach to successfully penetrate the global Islamic travel market.