Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
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 Muslim-Friendly Airports
Turkey has 57 civil airports, 17 of them are international ones. All airports and shopping
centers have mosques and ablution facilities for travelers. Fully Halal certified food sections
(both food and operations) are not in service in airports and shopping centers yet. But some
of the food chains operating inside airports use Halal certified products. For example, Burger
King and McDonalds announced that all their meat products have Halal certificates from the
supplier. Their meat supplier is Pınar Meat Company and their chicken supplier is Banvit
Company which both have Halal certification from Turkish Standards Institute (TSE).298 299
 Muslim-Friendly Transportation Facilities
Most of the middle and large size petrol stations and stopovers have a masjid and ablution
facilities along highways and intercity roads in Turkey. Most of the intercity bus corporations
arrange break times in accordance with prayer times. Public sea buses and ferries (operated
by government or private sector) have a masjid and ablution facilities.
 Muslim-friendly Online Booking Websites
Muslim-friendly filtering options have been seen for a while on worldwide online booking
websites.300 Online filtering tools are newly developed for Muslim hotel booking websites that
allow customers to choose one or more MFT products and services from conventional
hotels.301 More than 15 different websites are marketing Muslim-friendly hotels (classifying
resorts, beach hotels, thermals, etc.) and their up to date prices, and accept online and offline
reservations for those hotels.
was founded by Atlas Group in 2014, and is based in Konya. Halalinn has the
message “Muslim-friendly booking” to target both Muslim hotels and conventional hotels that
are accepting to serve at least one of the MFT products or services. This new online booking
reservation website allows filtering and customization of Muslim tourism products and
services based on Muslim customer needs, incorporating even conventional hotels in addition
to Muslim hotels. Currently, has more than 700 hotels on its database across
Turkey. Up until May 5th 2016, the Halalinn sales marketing team had contacted more than
700 hotel across Turkey asking if they would provide Muslim-friendly tourism products and
services upon online requests from the customers. For any hotel, removing alcohol from
rooms and placing a Quran and prayer rug into the rooms are the minimum requirements to
be accepted for listing on 302
also offers Halal-related filters for hotels and resorts. In addition to filters
on general features such as star-rating, and review score, the platforms provides filters on
Halal food availability, no alcohol policy and ladies-only facilities. The website lists close to
200 resorts, hotels and villas, most of which are based in Turkey.
29 eat. McDonald's Turkey, 2016. Web.
29 eat . Burger King Turkey, 2016. Web.
30 otel Reservation Pages. 2016. Web...
30 ind Hotels . , 2016. Web. Note: provides online halal filtering
option from 600 hotels, including traditional hotels who are accepted to serve at least the Halal kit of Halalinn (which
consists from Qibla direction signer and the Qur’an Karim).
302 From the email and phone interview with Mrs. Zerrin Aydın Pekacar, Contract Manager of April 2016.