Constructing a model and index for halal tourism villages to support sustainable development in Indonesia

This study develops a conceptual model and constructs a sustainable halal tourism village index (SHTVI) to support sustainable tourism development in Indonesia. Moving beyond conventional halal tourism research, this study advances a multidimensional, village-level assessment framework that integrates sustainability principles with the halal value chain perspective. A mixed-methods approach is employed, combining the Delphi technique to establish expert consensus on indicator relevance with the analytic network process to determine the relative weights across interdependent indicators. The proposed model comprises six clusters—policy; 3A2P (accessibility, attractions, amenities, people, and promotion); capital and investment; environment; innovation gap; and communication—encompassing a total of 30 indicators. The index is applied to 51 tourism villages. The findings indicate that sustainable halal tourism development in the study context remains at an early stage. SHTVI scores are positively associated with perceived economic, social, cultural, and ecological outcomes, as well as with reported community satisfaction and perceived quality of life. However, these associations should be interpreted as exploratory and indicative, rather than as evidence of causal relationships. The study contributes to the literature by providing an integrated and empirically grounded framework for assessing sustainable halal tourism performance at the village level. From a practical perspective, the SHTVI offers a diagnostic and benchmarking tool that can support policymakers and stakeholders in identifying performance gaps, prioritising targeted interventions, and designing context-sensitive strategies for the development of sustainable halal tourism villages.