Muslim Friendly Tourism (MFT):
Understanding the Supply and Demand Sides
In the OIC Member Countries
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 Prayer facilities: at all the stops along the Highways, it has very well maintained prayer
areas, separately for males and females. Most of them are exceptionally well
maintained with very comfortable wudu facilities. In other countries where they do
have places for salaah along the roads, most of them do not take the same care as taken
by the Malaysian highway operators in making the prayer places clean for both males
and females.
 The washrooms are clean and are generally fitted with hand showers with separate
well-maintained facilities for males and females. In some places you could even find
showers.
 All the stops have food outlets which serve Halal food. Most of them are food court like
facilities. However, some stops have restaurants as well. In general, all of them serve
Halal food at reasonable prices.
2.4.3 Accommodation Services
This section examines the accommodation services and their ability to cater to the needs of the
Muslim tourist. Many hotels including in non-OIC member states are targeting the Muslim
travelers. Several hotels both in OIC and non-OIC destinations are including Muslim-friendly
amenities in rooms, such as Qurans, prayer carpets, Arabic-language TV channels and qiblah
direction marking, which indicates the direction of Makkah.
In many OIC destinations such as Malaysia, UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, Qatar, Brunei etc., the
Hotels which call themselves as “Halal Hotels”, “Muslim Friendly Hotels” or “Sharia-compliant
hotels” are growing. These hotels provide services ranging from “Need to have”, “good to have”
to “nice to have” described in Chapter 1.
Mostafa A. Soud, Executive Assistant Manager for Retaj Hotels and Hospitality based in Doha
Qatar mentioned that his hotel chain is completely halal. No alcohol is available at any of his
hotel chain. In addition, smoking is not allowed. He added that their aim is to build multiple
hotels to attract Muslim holidaymakers. Sofyan Hotels in Indonesia’s calls itself as a “Shariah-
compliant hotel”. According to Mr Riyanto Sofian, it is managed in compliance with the Islamic
Shariah principles.
The development of accommodation services in non-OIC destinations is very uneven.
However, many seminars and workshops conducted in places like Japan, New Zealand and
Australia to educate the Hoteliers. A few international chains of hotels are actively pursuing
plans to attract the Muslim tourist.
Chris Nader, Vice President of Shaza Hotels based in Dubai, mentioned that they have a very
ambitious development growth in the next three years and would like to see a Shaza Hotel in the
major cities of the OIC countries. The challenge according to him is that not enough investors are
looking at owning hotels that cater to this market. Questions arise for the investors are whether
the absence of alcohol means less profitability. However, the opportunity is very strong as more
international hotel brands are seeing the potential of this market. He expects Shaza will soon face
competition in the luxury segment.
Riyanto Sofyan, Chairman of Sofyan Hospitality made the following comments of the challenges
in adopting the sharia principles. Applying Sharia principles in business involves discarding any
unethical elements. “When we adopted the Sharia practices most of the people were surprised