Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Developing and Marketing MFT Products and Services
In the OIC Member Countries
45
Halal travel conferences are on the rise. While they have 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. The first “Halal
Tourism Conference” held in Europe was hosted by Spain in 2014, with a second one in
Turkey in May 2016.
Abu Dhabi hosted “The World Halal Tourism Summit and Exhibition (WHTS)” in 2015 and is
planning the next World Halal Tourism Summit 2016 in November 2016 during ITW Abu
Dhabi (International Travel Week).
Croatia is hosting its World Halal Day in November 2016, with Halal Tourism as one of the
main topics. 84 In Thailand, the Tourism Authority organized, in parallel to the Thailand
Travel Mart Plus (TTM +), the first forum for the promotion of the country as a Muslim-
friendly destination and arranged meetings between the invited travel agents from the MENA
region and Thai tourism operators who are targeting the Muslim travel market. 85
2.5 Current Government Policies Related to MFT
Even though it’s the private sector that delivers services to tourists, governments and tourism
products and services providers can cooperate in a number of areas including developing
tourism strategies, creating networks or joint marketing campaigns. 86 Governments across the
world have supported the development of the MFT sector in a variety of ways including 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. In this section, examples from non-OIC
government policies and initiatives in the various areas will be provided, while examples from
OIC countries will be covered in the next part of the report (Section 5.6).
1. Raising Awareness
Government bodies have engaged to varying degrees in raising awareness of the MFT market
potential and Muslim traveler expectation and needs. These efforts were targeted at other
government bodies as well as at products and services providers. The following examples
show a variety of government initiatives in this area;
 Japanese regional authorities87 have been involved in organizing seminars on Muslim
lifestyles and manners for local businesses in an effort to raise their awareness of the
expectations of Muslim tourists. 88 In one instance, a local government created a
Japanese-language Muslim Hospitality Handbook targeting Japanese businesses with
information on Islamic beliefs and how to interact with their Muslim clientele.89
84 “ISFIN supports World Halal Day Croatia.” World Halal Day. 2 Apr. 2016. Web
85 Please refer to Thailand case study for more information.
86 “Global Report on Public-Private Partnerships: Tourism Development.” UNWTO. Spain: November 2015.
87 For further information, please refer to Japan case study.
88 Iwata Keisuke. “Japan joins the Halal tourism race.” MV Media. Japan Times. 2 Dec. 2013. Web.
89 Penn, Michael. "Japan Embraces Muslim Visitors to Bolster Tourism." Al Jazeera English. 17 Dec. 2015. Web.