Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
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 Develop Body to advocate for Muslim traveler rights: In addition to strengthening
above two areas of global engagement, MFT ‘Mature Markets’ should consider
addressing the growing challenge of western destination based ‘Islamophobia’
affecting Muslim travelers world-wide.333 This includes Muslim travelers from OIC
countries going to western destinations for travel. MFT ‘Mature Markets’ should
support establishment of a body to combat Islamophobia by proactively addressing
these challenges.334
5. SME Support:
Given the key gaps and opportunity areas for the MFT travel sector is training tourism suppliers,
facilitating Halal certification, providing subsidies to SME’s and establishing an online reference
that includes useful tools for tourism suppliers are mechanism to encourage and develop.
 Facilitate Halal certification: Governments should facilitate for small and medium
enterprises to obtain Halal certification by both providing training and subsidizing
certification or even by providing certification free of charge as in the case of
Indonesia providing free Halal certifications for 750 small and medium enterprises.
 Training tourism suppliers: Tourism ministries in OIC countries are well advised to
establish on-going training programs to train the industry on tailoring their
products and services to the MFT market as well as on effectively marketing their
products and services. The training programs should be designed to address the
gaps.
 Establish a mentorship program: Another way to develop the skills and expertise of
tourism suppliers is by pairing each of them with a mentor. The mentor can be
either from the same country or another OIC country with which there is bilateral
cooperation.
 Providing subsidies: As discussed under government policies, the government
should provide subsidies to support small and medium business enterprises in
obtaining Halal certification.
333 Revesz, Rachael. “Muslim woman kicked off plane as flight attendant said she 'did not feel comfortable' with the
passenger.” The Independent. 15 Apr. 2016. Web.
334 The idea of establishing a steering body to combat Islamophobia and advocate for Muslim rights was proposed by Tariq
Mahmood of Andalucian Routes at the Halal Travel Conference 2016 on May 3-5 in Konya, Turkey.