Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
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6 Policy Recommendations
For OIC member countries, a 5-step structured set of recommendations is presented below.
This is aimed to provide practical recommendations to facilitate an effective national MFT
strategy, related policies, products and services priorities, marketing priorities, and
recommendations for tourism private-sector key player types.
Figure 19: 5-Step Policy Recommendations Framework
The following policy recommendations are presented for majority of OIC countries who are
currently in the ‘Progressing’ category as presented in Section #5, Gap Analysis and Opportunity
Insights. Specific recommendations for ‘Mature Markets’ and ‘new markets’ are noted when
distinctly applicable.
6.1 Driving MFT Strategy
In order to successfully apply a sustained and high impact MFT products and marketing strategy
in a country, a Government led national MFT strategy (minimal to robust) needs to be developed
that links to overall tourism goals for the country. Following are three key steps in developing
and deploying a national MFT strategy:
1. Build internal stakeholder awareness: For most OIC countries, a strong business case
will need to be established internally within the Government tourism stakeholders to
create a focus on the MFT market and invest resources and effort. The data sets of the
Muslim consumer markets’ strong interest in Muslim-friendly travel as presented in this
Study’s early sections, as well as COMCEC’s first report “Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Understanding the Demand and Supply Sides in the OIC Member Countries” should be
leveraged to prepare a national MFT business case presentation and document. The
MFT market presents a clear growth strategy area for OIC countries and this needs to be