Muslim Friendly Tourism:
Regulating Accommodation Establishments
In the OIC Member Countries
73
Table 16: Family-Friendly and Ethical MFT Services and Facilities
Minimum requirements
Halal Food Halal food options
Alcohol Policy Alcohol-free minibar for Muslim guests
Good to have
Alcohol Policy No alcohol: no bar or alcohol served at hotel restaurants
Entertainment No nightclubs on site
No casinos on site
No adult channels available
Internet content filters in place (for obscenity)
Family-friendly programming and entertainment on site
Staff Staff to wear modest clothes
Premium
Alcohol Policy No alcohol on site (e.g., at restaurant or on demand)
Entertainment No obscene, music or artwork, that may contradict Islamic values,
displayed
Environmental Environmental certification and eco-friendly processes in place
5.2. MFT Standards
The importance Muslim travelers place on MFT services exemplify a need for measuring
hospitality providers’ adherence to providing these services. As the previous section revealed,
countries are at varying levels in terms of how developed their MFT ecosystem is; this is also
true of their regulatory system for MFT services. In this section, the focus is on the need for
establishing MFT standards, and the lessons learned from mainstream government and
private standards on how the standards are set up, what they measure and how companies
are certified against those standards. For full recommendations, please refer to Section 6
“Policy Recommendations”.
5.2.1 Government Standards
A. How standards are developed
There are several key steps, which governments follow in establishing mainstream hospitality
standards, which when compared against the steps for establishing MFT standards, highlight
a number of gaps and opportunities for improvement for MFT standards.