Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Regulating Accommodation Establishments
In the OIC Member Countries
49
There are also some important lessons to be learned from Muslim-Friendly standards in other
areas of the Islamic Economy. While no global “Halal” standard yet exists in any sector,
standard development is perhaps most mature in the Halal food industry. Current MFT
accommodation standards have built on existent Halal food certification, adopting prevailing
“Halal food” standards and certifications to apply to hotel restaurants and kitchens. Still, a
review of standard development progress and setbacks in the Halal food sector provides
valuable insights for MFT standard development as many of the same issues prevail in
standard development across these sectors. 110 The following figure illustrates the common
stakeholders in standard development across various areas of the Islamic Economy.
Figure 13: Islamic Economy Standard Development Stakeholders
Source: DinarStandard
Some of the key lessons for MFT accommodation standards from the Halal food standard
development include: mutual recognition of different regional standards, benefiting from the
valuable know-how of existing accreditation and certification players, avoiding potential
conflicts of interest between accreditation and certification roles, engaging stakeholders
through consultation and coordination and training, and minimizing the cost of accreditation
and certification especially for voluntary standards.
Standard development in “Halal” pharmaceuticals can also offer some guidance for MFT. For
example, CCM Berhad, a private sector company, took the initiative to draft guidelines for
Halal pharmaceutical standards in Malaysia. CCM Berhad then lobbied for the adoption of its
draft standard. This initiative bypassed several typical standard development steps and
helped shorten the process to six months. 111 Additional lessons from other “Halal” sectors
include: ensuring certification, accreditation, and enforcement mechanisms are in place when
standard is issued, requiring certifiers to present “scheme document” or standard operating
procedure for its inspections for accreditation in new areas, adding new expertise to “Halal”
110 Latif, Haroon. Municipal Halal Strategy. Rep. N.p.: DinarStandard, 2016. Print
111 Telephone interview for MFT Standards. 14 Oct. 2016.