Understanding the Impact of Knowledge on Perception of Islam – What Role Cultural Tourism Can Play?

This paper addresses the role of cultural tourism in bridging cultural gaps; looking specifically at the potentials of communicating Islamic knowledge. This paper comes in two folds: assessing the impact of visitors’ knowledge of Islam on their perception, followed by an unsolicited assessment of visitors’ impressions of their visit gathered via a content analysis of the visitors’ reviews on trip advisor. To that effect the case of Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (SQGM) in Muscat, Oman was selected to explore visitors experience and knowledge. 213 questionnaires were distributed in an exit survey exercise to asses the type of Islamic knowledge non-Muslim visitors have and the impact of this knowledge on their perception of Islam. This methodology was validated by a content analysis of visitors’ reviews on trip advisor offering an unsolicited assessment of visits to SQGM. On one hand, the results revealed a strong association between breadth of knowledge about Islam and the positive perception of Islamic faith and civilisation. On the other hand, the content analysis results revealed a focus on materialistic components of the mosque, highest positive repetition, for example, were received by mentions of the chandelier, the carpet and not mentions of conceptual and cultural content. The paper also concluded that the focus of the interpretation assessed via the trip advisor content analysis did not address the current problematic situation of the image of Islam but was rather superficial. The main recommendation of this paper is to effectively use cultural tourism to promote cultural understanding and bridge gaps.