Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
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respectively), and April was mentioned more by Asian (30%), and European and North
American respondents (28%).
Respondents were also asked whether they research destinations before traveling to
ensure they meet their religious needs, 84% affirmed that they do. They mentioned getting
the information through travel websites (72%), from family and friends (63%), social media
(47%), blogs (41%), travel agencies (22%), and advertising (12%).
When asked about what influenced them to choose to travel to the last destination they
visited, 67% mentioned being influenced by recommendations from family and friends, 28%
cited online reviews followed by online promotions (21%), and social media (18%).
With regard to their accommodation during their last leisure trip, 53% of the respondents
stayed in hotels (13% in 5 star hotels, 23% in 4 star hotels, and 17% in less than 4 star
hotels), while 30% stayed with family and friends, 12% rented houses/apartments and 5%
stayed in hostels.
With respect to the booking method used for those who didn’t stay with family and friends,
55% mentioned using travel websites, 23% cited going through travel agencies, and 15%
mentioned contacting hotels directly. The rest of the respondents (7%) cited numerous other
tools including walk-in reservations or someone else doing reservations for them.
Respondents were asked about whether they were satisfied with their last destination
various venues accommodation of their religious needs. The scale used was a 5 point scale
with the following response categories: extremely satisfied, very satisfied, satisfied, neutral,
unsatisfied, very unsatisfied, and extremely unsatisfied. 80% cited that they were satisfied
with food and beverage venues, followed closely by being satisfied with shopping venues
(79%), cultural venues (78%), and airports and hotels (76% each), while 72% of respondents
were satisfied with entertainment venues. There were some differences between regions with
regards to the level of satisfaction. Across all categories, the highest level of satisfaction was
that of respondents from African countries (83-87%), followed by those from GCC (76-84%),
Asia (74-82%), and Europe and North America (76%). For hotels, the highest level of
satisfaction was that of respondents from African countries (86%), followed by those from
GCC (82%), Asia (80%), and Europe and North America (72-78%).
It is also worth noting that when asked about if there is a specific religious need that was
totally neglected by tourism products and services providers , 39% of the respondents
said there were. Availability of Halal food and prayer areas at different venues were the main
two areas of concern to Muslim travelers.
With regard to whether they would recommend the destination to friends and family
members, 95% of the respondents mentioned that they would.
3. Destination Selection Criteria
Survey respondents were asked to rate the importance of a number of criteria, shown below
in the graph, for their choice of a leisure destination. The criteria were randomized in order to
avoid order bias. The scale used was a 5 point scale with the following response categories:
extremely important, very important, important, neutral and not important.
The graph below details the results from the survey and shows that;