Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Regulating Accommodation Establishments
In the OIC Member Countries
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a unified global accommodation standard, many hotel quality standards have successfully
emerged over the years. Attempts at international quality standards have had limited success.
More recently, online booking platforms have developed hotel ratings that are used globally
alongside or instead of traditional quality standards by aggregating the personal feedback of
millions of guests. Overall, conventional quality standards typically measure criteria related
to: lobby/reception, hotel services, guest rooms/bathrooms, leisure amenities, food and
beverages, and exterior. While alternative quality standards measure a more varied set of
criteria than conventional standards. They often measure criteria such as management and
communication, building design/construction, housekeeping and waste management, water
and energy conservation, and food and beverage operations.
The certification processes of conventional and alternative quality standards for
accommodations have a number of common elements. Key elements of most certification
processes include application for evaluation, hotel assessment and evaluation, scoring and
feedback to accommodation provider, publication of assessment/certification, periodic
audits, and recertification. Sometimes, an initial self-evaluation may also be included in this
process, or as part of the application. Inspections are the most common method for standard
organizations to monitor compliance. Inspections may be scheduled or unannounced i.e.,
“mystery guests”. The frequency of such inspections can range from once annually to once
every five years or more, depending on the standard. The standard setter or the hotel pays
the cost of compliance monitoring depending on the standard.
According to a recent WTO study, accommodation providers reap a number of important
benefits from following hospitality standards. They help small and independent hotels in their
positioning efforts. Standards also serve as both expectation indicators and quality assurance
for guests and lead to increased destination attractiveness and guest satisfaction. They
facilitate comparability and add credibility to hotel offerings. Standards also help motivate
staff and increase hotel rates and margins. Other research studies also indicate that
hospitality standards have a number of positive effects on accommodation establishments
adopting them, including signaling quality to consumers, increasing customer satisfaction
levels, and achieving higher operational efficiency.
Muslim-Friendly Tourism Standards and Regulations: In recent years, the tourism industry
has started to grasp and address the distinct needs of Muslim travelers. Muslim-Friendly
Travel is seen as a promising niche market by many accommodation providers. Research has
indicated that Muslim travelers have specific faith-related needs; some of which may even
clash with the needs of non-Muslim travelers, such as the absence of alcohol from hotel
premises. In the framework of the current study, a second traveler survey was conducted to
establish the relative importance Muslim travelers assign to including different MFT services
in an MFT standard. The survey responses, shown in the following graph, clearly highlight
that Muslim travelers value a variety of MFT features, and believe that many of these features
should be included in a possible MFT accommodation standard.
Respondents were asked to rate, using a 5-point scale, the importance of Muslim-friendly
services being regulated by a Muslim-friendly accommodation standard (that the hotel is
certified to offer these services). The services rated included seventeen items outlined in the
graph below. The scale used included the following categories: extremely important, very