People walk and take pictures along the Saloma Link Bridge, with the Petronas Twin Towers in the background (center), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Dec 19, 2020. (MOHD RASFAN / AFP)
As the world focuses on post-COVID-19 economic recovery, experts say Asia’s travel and hospitality sector should step up focus on the halal tourism segment to shore up the industry revival.
They noted that halal tourism — a travel subcategory that is geared to meeting the needs of Muslim families in aspects such as food choices, gender-segregated facilities — was experiencing a boom before the pandemic and that the region should now redouble its efforts to capture the opportunities.
Halal is an Arabic word, which means what is lawful or permitted. For dietary standard, it is what is prescribed in the Quran or the Muslim sacred scripture.
Fazal Bahardeen, founder and chief executive of CrescentRating, a research and consultancy firm focused on halal travel, said East Asia markets like Japan, South Korea had been trying to diversify their visitor arrivals even before COVID-19, aiming to lure more travelers from member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Halal tourism was experiencing a boom before the pandemic, experts noted, adding that that Asia should now redouble its efforts to capture the opportunities
The OIC, aimed at protecting Muslim interests worldwide, is an inter-governmental group with 57 member states, with headquarters in Saudi Arabia.
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Halal tourism had been a high-growth segment, with tour packages, destinations and facilities designed to cater to Muslim considerations and address Muslim needs.
According to the sixth edition of the Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2021 released recently, Thailand and Japan were found to have “continued some level of passive marketing” to the Muslim market amid the pandemic. Singapore is said to have spent an estimated US$520 million on halal dining in 2019, largely thanks to its local Muslim community.
“If these destinations can leverage the Muslim market properly, it will help them to accelerate their recovery,” said Bahardeen, who is also the founder of Halal Trip, an online platform for Muslim travelers.
“When they look around which markets they can target, they see that Indonesia and Malaysia are probably some of the top markets that they need to target,” he said.
The GMTI report forecasts that the global Muslim market will rebound in 2023. There were 160 million Muslim travelers in 2019 – an increase from 140 million in 2018, representing 10 percent of the global travel industry. The pandemic reduced this to 42 million in 2020 as many countries shut their borders.
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Bahardeen said a growing realization of the need to diversify the visitor base has prompted North Asian destinations to develop Muslim-friendly facilities and services, which he also equates with becoming “family friendly”.
Being family friendly includes child-friendly services and facilities and adopting the “no-alcohol” policy, among other things, he noted.
“Those services would not only attract the Muslim market, but could also attract non-Muslim market,” Bahardeen said, citing examples of “dry hotels” in Dubai which have attracted travelers “who are not necessarily Muslims”.
A dry hotel does not serve alcohol to its guests and at the same time, alcohol is not allowed in their premises. Alcohol is considered haram or forbidden in Islam.
For Moamen Gouda, associate professor of Middle East Economics at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, Halal tourism has its potential across the region.
This year’s GMTI report ranked 140 destinations on how ready they are to attract the Muslim travel market amid the pandemic.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Kuwait and Indonesia led the top 20 Muslim outbound markets in 2019. By region, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries accounted for 30 percent, followed by Southeast Asia at 10 percent.
Turkey led the top Muslim traveler inbound market in 2019, followed by Saudi Arabia. These top 20 destinations account for around 66 percent of the total Muslim arrivals, according to the GMTI report.
Saudi Arabia is an important destination for Muslims for the Umrah or pilgrimage, and the Hajj, which Muslims need to complete once in their lifetime. Two of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, are in Saudi Arabia.
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Saudi Arabia’s decided in the past two years to scale back the observation of Hajj to keep the pandemic under control, affecting millions of Muslim travelers and service providers.
Fatima Ahmed, a board member of the Association of Bahrain Travel and Tour Agents, said since the pandemic started, they “have always been trying to come up with new ideas and solutions” to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism sector.
But Ahmed, who also owns IBN Firmas Travel and Tourism, said she had to suspend her Hajj and Umrah tours because “there was no way around it”.
She is hopeful Saudi Arabia is “working hard to ease things up” for next year.
