Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
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8. Challenges
There are complaints about Islamic hotels and even more complaints about newly converted
Muslim hotels. The new trend in Turkey is converting a hotel from conventional hotel to a
Muslim-friendly one. High prices and under investment in Muslim hotels attract traditional
hotel owners to convert their hotels to MFT ones. However, especially with newly converted
hotels, this can cause awkward situations for Muslim travelers because of their inexperience.
The general complaint points raised by tourist interviewees for all Muslim hotels are;
 Women only beaches cannot be separated and covered completely from nearby
conventional hotel beaches. Actually, it is not allowed to fully separate beaches from
one another according to Turkey’s shores law.
 Loud music can be heard even in masjids and mosques inside the hotel.
 Non-Islamic behaviour of other travellers. Over tolerance of hotel management due to
fear of customer loss.
 Non-modest clothing of hotel personnel (at newly converted hotels, especially).
 Allowing men and women to sit together during evening activities, especially during
musical activities.
 Lack of reminders about the Halal rules (haram, halal, tayyab etc.) by Hotel
management.
 Conflict of interest of Muslim hotel owners between full sensitive customers and semi
sensitive customers in terms of applying Islamic rules.
 Lack of investments in separate facilities for men and women, such as separate
swimming pools and spa facilities. 313
9. Lessons Learned
 Traditional hotels are adapting to MFT products and services faster than expected as
the customer base is expanding steadily in Turkey.
 Even if they are not able to serve as MFT fully, hotels are eager to announce at least
one or more MFT products and services. More than 700 hotels have registered to
most of them as ‘partially MFT hotel’.
 As a result of the attractive MFT market segment some traditional hotels (e.g. Selge
Beach Hotel) are converting from a traditional hotel to an MFT one.
 Gap of new investments in the market.
 Educated personnel are a golden key for keeping Muslim tourists loyal.
313 From face to face interviews with two Muslim tourists from Istanbul, Turkey. Mr. Hasan Arslan (Lawyer, age 36, married
with children) and Mr. Gökay Gülay (Computer Engineer, age 37, married with children)