Geopolitical Conflict and Muslim Travel Behavior: The Impact of the Gaza Crisis on Halal Destination Choice and Boycott Tourism Dynamics

Abstract

The Gaza crisis — initiated by the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli military operations that have, by late 2025, killed more than 67,000 Palestinians — has generated a wave of geopolitically motivated Muslim consumer behavior whose scale, duration, and structural implications for global halal tourism have no recent historical parallel. This systematic literature review (SLR) applies PRISMA 2020 protocols to analyze 37 peer-reviewed publications and authoritative empirical sources from 2023 to 2026, examining the scholarly landscape across five thematic clusters: (1) geopolitical conflict and tourism disruption — the direct crisis literature on Middle East tourism impacts; (2) the theoretical architecture of boycott tourism — politicized tourism consumerism, political consumer theory, and the ethical dilemma framework; (3) Gaza-specific Muslim consumer boycott behavior — documented scale, psychological mechanisms, religious determinants, and economic consequences; (4) deglobalization and the restructuring of Muslim halal destination choice — how solidarity solidarity-motivated destination avoidance and buycotting(conscious support for alternative destinations) are reshaping halal tourism flows; and (5) governance implications for halal destination managers, OIC institutional actors, and Muslim travel industry operators. A critical synthesis reveals that the Gaza crisis has catalyzed a structural transformation in Muslim travel decision-making — producing what this review terms a geopolitical halal premium: a willingness among Muslim travelers, particularly Gen Z and Millennial cohorts, to accept inferior halal service quality or higher costs at destinations perceived as aligned with Palestinian solidarity, relative to superior halal infrastructure at destinations perceived as geopolitically complicit. The review proposes a Muslim Political Consumerism in Tourism (MPCT) Framework with five interacting dimensions and a ten-item future research agenda for the field's most urgently needed empirical developments.

Keywords: Gaza crisis; boycott tourism; Muslim travel behavior; political consumerism; halal destination choice; geopolitical conflict; BDS movement; deglobalization; Islamic solidarity; politicized tourism consumerism; Islamic consumer behavior; Palestine