Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
6
 Attractions, recreation and entertainment venues across the OIC countries offer a
varying level of services to accommodate Muslim travelers’ needs. Some venues offer
halal food options, prayer areas and washing areas for ablutions, others offer special
service hours for women and families to enjoy the entertainment facilities.
 Traditionally, travel agencies have focused on fulfilling Muslim travelers’ Hajj and
Umrah needs. However, they have started lately considering leisure travel also as an
area where there are Muslim needs to be met. Some agencies are providing “Halal
customized” services for Muslim travelers who would like to travel to Western
countries. Digital travel services products are expanding across OIC countries with a
number of travel websites and travel apps being created in OIC countries both by the
government or the private sector.
MFT Marketing trends: With respect to current marketing trends, the fragmented nature of
tourism markets in general has led to a certain level of cooperation between products and
service providers at one level and between them and their respective governments at another
level, especially in the area of marketing MFT products and services. Governments across the
world have cooperated with tourism products and services providers in support of the
development of the MFT sector in general and in marketing in particular.
Areas of public private partnership include raising awareness among tourism products and
services providers of the MFT market potential and Muslim consumer needs, supporting
providers in developing and certification of MFT products and services, and engaging in
destination marketing. Small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) have created local
partnership or tourism clusters to build a tourism offering able to compete globally.
Cluster marketing has a number of benefits including exchanging experience and more
effective resources utilization. Common branding enables SMTEs to improve their marketing
positioning and create joint marketing and promotional initiatives as well as a central
distribution system.
Both Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) and tourism industry players have been
active in attracting Muslim travelers through the use of digital tools including the web, mobile
apps and social media. Halal travel conferences have also been used successfully to raise the
awareness of the MFT in general, they also have proved to be a valuable marketing tool for
host countries in terms of increasing their visibility on the MFT market scene.
MFT Distribution channel trends: The distribution channels used by MFT industry products
and service providers include both traditional tools such as direct sales, tour operators and
travel agencies as well as digital tools such as providers’ websites and online travel agencies
including B2B and B2C travel websites. In the case of online travel agencies, a number of
mainstream distribution channels are available such as Booking and Expedia as well as
Muslim-friendly online travel agencies such as HalalBooking, HalalTrip, Lagisatu, Tripfez or
the new B2B Muslim Travel warehouse. Interviews conducted within the scope of the case
studies with MFT products and services providers indicate that most MFT products and
services providers use a combination of traditional and digital distribution tools.
When survey respondents were asked about how they booked their last trip, half of the
respondents cited booking through online travel websites their last trip’s accommodation,
followed by close to a quarter of the respondents (22%) stating that they have booked