Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Regulating Accommodation Establishments
In the OIC Member Countries
1
Executive Summary
Study Purpose and Methodology: The purpose of this study is threefold. The first objective is
to enable all Muslim Friendly Tourism (MFT) stakeholders to examine the status of MFT
regulations (standards, guidelines or other regulations) for accommodation establishments in
the OIC member countries and compare them with conventional tourism quality standards.
The second is to identify challenges in the current implementation of MFT regulations and
lessons learned from current practices, and the third is to draft guidelines for accommodation
establishments and policy recommendations for the OIC member countries seeking to
establish MFT standards. The Study combines primary and secondary research tools and
sources to fulfill its objectives. Primary research used includes a global Muslim Traveler Survey
to ascertain consumer needs and expectations in terms of MFT regulation for accommodation
establishments as well as interviews with government officials to identify current and planned
government policies related to MFT regulation in the accommodation sector. It also includes
an accommodation sector survey to identify current and planned MFT regulations in the
accommodation sector, the challenges accommodation establishments face due to
inconsistencies in MFT regulations as well as the difficulties encountered, if any, in setting
and implementing MFT regulations. Three country case studies were selected to provide
insights into current MFT regulations and standards’ development. The secondary sources used
include previous market studies, trade and sector reports, academic articles and research papers,
government, international organizations and press publications.
Market Landscape of MFT: Muslim-friendly accommodation establishments are defined as
accommodation establishments that address some of the needs of Muslim travelers. Muslim-
friendly accommodation establishments could be further segmented into those with focused
offerings targeting Muslims and addressing the full range of Muslim lifestyle needs, and those
with mixed offerings attempting to accommodate Muslims, however, their core consumers
are non-Muslims and as such they do not address the needs of Muslim guests to the same
extent as Muslim-friendly accommodations with focused offerings. There is currently no
published estimate for the total number of Muslim-friendly accommodation establishments
globally. To estimate the number of Muslim-friendly accommodations, data was collected
from a number of sources including both online travel booking sites and offline Muslim-
friendly tourism operators, Halal certification organizations, and other travel content-related
sources. The sources used include , HalalTrip, Tripfez, Serendipity Travel,
, Luxury Halal Travel, Instituto Halal, HolidayME, Bali Halal Tour,
Islamiotel, , , , and
JAKIM. While the estimate of the number of Muslim-friendly accommodation establishments
is not exhaustive, it is built on a robust coverage of the market. 680 Muslim-friendly travel
accommodation establishments have been identified with either focused or mixed offerings in
2015. This estimate includes certified hotels and hotels that identify themselves as Muslim-
friendly without external verification. The countries with the largest number of Muslim-
friendly accommodation establishments are Malaysia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and
Indonesia. Malaysia and Turkey alone account for nearly 88% of the total number of Muslim-
friendly accommodations identified.
Conventional Tourism Quality Standards and Regulatory Frameworks: Hotels have been
subject to evaluation and rating for many decades. While the hospitality sector does not have