HUMAN RESOURCE COMPETENCE IN PROMOTING TOURISM INNOVATION AND TOURIST LOYALTY IN ACEH'S HALAL DESTINATIONS

Innovation in tourism has an appeal to tourist satisfaction and loyalty. This study analyses the relationship between product innovation (halal facilities), process innovation (destination governance), organizational innovation (contribution of local organizations), and marketing innovation (digital promotion strategy) on tourist satisfaction and loyalty in Aceh's halal tourism destinations. This study also evaluates the moderating effect of HR competencies in strengthening the relationship between traveller satisfaction and loyalty. Data were collected from 400 domestic and international travellers using the Cochran sampling technique to ensure population representation. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to analyse the cause-and-effect relationship between innovation variables as well as the moderating effect of HR competencies, with strict theoretical validation. The results show that all aspects of innovation have a positive effect on tourist satisfaction, with the highest contributions from process innovation (destination governance) at 46.6% and organisational innovation (local organization contribution) at 24.9%. Tourist satisfaction is the dominant mediator of destination loyalty at 95.0%, indicating that increasing satisfaction almost directly increases loyalty. HR competence contributed 9.4% to loyalty, while its interaction with traveller satisfaction was significant at 5.5%. This study confirms that tourist satisfaction plays a central role as a mediator of loyalty, with process and organisational innovation as key drivers. HR competencies play a critical role in optimizing the impact of innovation, although their contribution still needs to be improved. Practical recommendations include destination needs-based HR training, strengthening governance, and utilising more aggressive digital marketing strategies to expand Aceh's halal tourism appeal.