Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Regulating Accommodation Establishments
In the OIC Member Countries
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Figure 1: MFT Accommodation Establishments Segmentation
Source: DinarStandard
In the above chart, accommodation establishments are first segmented according to type; 4 or
5 star hotels, other hotels, resorts, motels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, villas, vacation/peer
rentals, and private homes. Accommodation establishments are then segmented according to
their offerings. Muslim-friendly hotels with mixed offerings include Halal certified options
from Halal kitchens that provide Halal food and beverage menus, and gender separated
facilities upon request. Muslim-friendly hotels with focused offerings target Muslim
consumers and provide Halal certified food and beverages, gender separated facilities, alcohol
free premises, Qur’ans, prayer mats in rooms and bidets in restrooms throughout the
accommodations. Non-MFT Accommodations do not market or publicize any Muslim-friendly
offerings; this segment includes mainstream accommodations.
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.
According to STR Global, the total number of hotels globally under the organization’s
consensus database was estimated to be 156,000 hotels, with 14.5 million rooms in 2015. The