Setting page template for page created by plugin

I’m creating a plugin where one of the first things it does is create a page. I have it create the post object, set the post_type as page and other parameters and then I set the page_template to a template file in my plugin directory. However, it doesn’t seem like it’s picking up on it. Here’s a snippet of what I’m working with:

$the_page = get_page_by_title( $the_page_title );

    if ( ! $the_page ) {

        // Create post object
        $_p = array();
        $_p['post_title'] = $the_page_title;
        $_p['post_content'] = "This text may be overridden by the plugin. You shouldn't edit it.";
        $_p['post_status'] = 'publish';
        $_p['post_type'] = 'page';
        $_p['comment_status'] = 'closed';
        $_p['ping_status'] = 'closed';
        $_p['post_category'] = array(1); // the default 'Uncategorised'
        $_p['page_template'] = '/template-our-locations.php';

        // Insert the post into the database
        $the_page_id = wp_insert_post( $_p );

    }

Am I doing this properly?