Muslim Friendly Tourism (MFT):
Understanding the Supply and Demand Sides
In the OIC Member Countries
3
As Muslim countries, Ramadhan services and facilities are one of the strengths of OIC member
states. As such, Ramadhan based themes could be developed to attract Muslim visitors to the
destination. Facilities with no non-halal activities and recreational facilities with privacy are
not widespread in most of the OIC member states. There is a sub-segment of Muslim travelers
who are looking for such services and facilities. Some OIC member states could look at
targeting this sub-segment, as some resorts in Turkey are doing for beach holidays.
The demand side key themes refer to the reasons and motivation for travel. Four main travel
reasons have been identified; religious, leisure, business and medical. Majority of Muslim
travel is for Leisure (including Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR)) which accounts for
around 75 percent of the travel. Religious travel constitutes around 10 percent of the total
Muslim visitors and is primarily Hajj and Umrah travel. Business travel is around 9 to 10
percent while travel for medical or healthcare reasons is less than 1 percent of the Muslim
travel market4 in 2014.
In terms of the leisure segment, the OIC member states have not fully exploited their inherent
strength of having a Muslim friendly environment. These include better productizing the
Islamic history and heritage sites/attractions. These are unique strengths of OIC member
states that will attract the Muslim visitors.
Supply side key themes refer to the travel hospitality services and facility comprising of
transport terminals, transport services, accommodation services, attraction and activities,
travel agents and tour operators, human capital and destinations as whole.
For the supply side themes, there is inconsistency in the level of Muslim friendly services
offered in the OIC member states. It is recommended that OIC member states adopt, if possible
OIC wide guidelines, on the basic services to be offered at airports, transport terminals,
transport services, accommodation services, attraction and activities. Guidelines are presented
in Chapter 1.
Travel operators in many of the OIC member states are mainly focused on outbound travelers.
The inbound travel is taken for granted as Muslim friendly and there is no concrete effort to
promote such packages. It is recommended to launch an overall education and awareness
program to the travel agents in particular, to exploit the market to its full potential. It is also
recommended to create alliances among the travel agents/tour operators to maximize intra-
OIC travel.
When it comes to developing human capital to cater the MFT market, there is very little
structured approach among the OIC member states. It is recommended that human resource
development programs can be put in place as a top priority.
In the study, 5 OIC member states and 2 non-OIC member states were examined as case
studies. These involved 3 field-based case studies of Malaysia, Indonesia and Qatar, and 4 desk-
based case studies of UAE, Tunisia, Singapore and the United Kingdom. These case studies
analyze the different aspects of MFT from both demand and supply sides at the destination.
4 Calculated by Crescentrating based on some criteria as well as the World Tourism Organization (2015) data; UNWTO
Tourism Highlights; Madrid, Spain, UNWTO.