Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
107
4.8 Turkey
1. Type/focus area for case study
Field Study/Marketing MFT Products and Services
2. Reasoning behind focus area choice
As a world’s top 6th tourism destination, Turkey is also the leader of Muslim-friendly beach
resorts in the world, with several successful examples of resorts catering exclusively to Muslims
including; Şah Inn Paradise Hotel, Adenya Hotels, and Bera Hotels.
Turkey hosted nearly 40 million foreign tourists in 2014 and more than 3.5 million of them were
Muslim tourists. The country’s tourism industry has 1.1 million bed capacity with 4.248 tourism
establishments including 684 five-star hotels, according to Association of Turkish Travel
Agencies.278 This almost doubles Spain’s five-star hotel numbers that are 356 as placed in
.
Contrary to physical capacity championship in the tourism industry, the country ranks seventh in
the State of the Global Islamic Economy 2015/16 Report’s Halal Travel Indicator. Ranking
seventh indicates a gap and a market opportunity meaning Turkey needs to fulfil broader
demand of Muslim tourists.
3. Background
Table 10: Turkey – Tourism Figures
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 CAGR
Total Inbound Tourist
Arrivals (Mil)
39.8 41.91 44.13 46.47 48.93 51.53 54.26 5.30%
Total Inbound
Expenditure ($ Bil)
29.5 31.18 32.96 34.84 36.82 38.92 41.14 5.70%
Total Outbound
Expenditure ($ Bil)
5.47 5.59 5.94 6.34 6.77 7.22 7.70 7.08%
Muslim Tourist
Arrivals (Mil)
3.87 4.09 4.32 4.57 4.83 5.11 5.40 5.70%
Source: UNWTO; DinarStandard synthesis and analysis; Government Statistics.
Turkey’s Muslim tourist arrivals have been estimated to grow by 5.3 percent CAGR from 4.1
million arrivals in 2015 to 5.4 million arrivals in 2020. The CAGR mirrors total inbound
tourist arrivals and total inbound expenditure, which is estimated to grow from 41.9 million
arrivals spending $31.2 billion in 2015 to 54.3 million arrivals spending $41.1 billion in 2020.
There is no regulated government support or incentive for development and marketing of
MFT products and services yet, though there are some new developments on the ground. On
June 2014, Turkish Standards Institute (TSE) announced, in cooperation with SMIIC, The
278 Association of Turkish Travel Agencies . TURSAB, 2014. Web.