Halal holidays: Halal travel industry soarswith rise in Muslim travelers

NEW YORK: For one of the fastest-growingsectors of the global travel industry, there is no pork on the hotel dinnermenus. There are flights with no alcohol on the drink carts, resorts withseparate swimming pools for men and women, and daily itineraries with built-inbreak times for the five daily calls to prayer.

Since 2016, the number of Muslim travellershas grown nearly 30 per cent, and a recent joint study by Mastercard andCrescent Rating, a research group that tracks halal-friendly travel, projectsthat over the next decade that sector’s contribution to the global economy willjump to US$300 billion from US$180 billion.

With a population that is disproportionatelyyoung, educated and upwardly mobile, they are one of the fastest-growingdemographics on the global tourism scene.

But this wasn’t always the case.

In 2015, Soumaya Hamdi went road-trippingthrough Asia with her husband and her then 4-month-old baby. The trio visitedSingapore and Malaysia, and then caught a flight to South Korea and on toJapan.

The trip was thrilling, but Hamdi and herhusband, who are both observant Muslims, found the daily search forhalal-certified food a difficult one.

Hamdi, who is based in London, beganblogging about the best Muslim-friendly restaurants she found, as well asprayer facilities and sites that were particularly welcoming for a family witha young baby. Those musings turned into Halal Travel Guide, an online platformoffering tips, recommendations and curated itineraries for Muslim travellers.

Her timing was right.

“In Europe, the Muslim community is now inits third or fourth generation. They are educated and have good paying jobs,”said Ufuk Secgin, chief marketing officer for Halal Booking, a Muslim-focusedvacation search engine.

“For the first generation, their idea of aholiday was visiting the family in the home country. This has changed.”

At ITB Asia this October, a leading travelshow held in Singapore, organisers partnered with two halal travel authorities,Crescent Rating and Halal Trip, to offer specialised panel discussions andshowcases targeting the estimated 156 million Muslims who will book travelbetween now and 2020.

At the heart of much of the discussion wasmatters of the belly. For Muslim travellers, “the number one factor is goodquality halal food," Hamdi said in an email exchange. “I’m not talkingabout curry or biryani ? I’m talking about authentic local food that is halal.After that, it’s usually prayer facilities.”

Tourists’ global demand for halal food hasgrown so much, in fact, that Have Halal Will Travel, a Singapore-based onlinecommunity for Muslim travellers, has also partnered with ITB Asia with athree-hour conference and special booth space focusing on foodie-centricoutreach to the Muslim tourism sector.

Like Halal Travel Guide, Have Halal WillTravel was founded in 2015. Today, their content reaches 9.1 million users eachmonth, according to their founder, Mikhael Goh. Goh dreamed up the site withthree friends while studying abroad in Seoul; he found himself frustrated on adaily basis with a lack of information about where to find quality halal food.

“We were thinking, why is it in 2015, whenthere is Yelp and TripAdvisor and so many popular apps and services to tell youwhere to eat and where to travel, why on earth is there so little informationfor Muslims?" Goh said.

“Not just about food ? yes, halal food isthe basis of a lot of things, but also about safety and prayer. There was ageneral lack of information out there and the information that did exist was sofragmented.”

Only a handful of years later, that gap inthe market is now teeming with niche sites, many of them written specificallyfor young Muslim women. At Passport and Plates, the Los Angeles-based bloggerSally Elbassir chronicles her global foodie adventures where pork and alcoholare always off the menu; at Arabian Wanderess, Esra Alhamal writes abouttraveling as a female, Muslim millennial on a budget; and at

the popular Muslim Travel Girl, run by theBulgaria-born, Britain-based Elena Nikolova, readers can learn aboutMuslim-friendly honeymoon resorts with private pools and get tips for a DIYUmrah (Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca).

Many of the bloggers interviewed for thisarticle echoed the same sentiment: Their goal is not just to make it easier forMuslim travellers to find food, prayer spaces and alcohol-free activities thatappeal to them. It’s also to support those travellers to branch out of theircomfort zones and feel empowered exploring the world.

“We specialise in pushing people tonon-Muslim majority companies,” said Goh. “The most popular destinations wework on are Japan and Korea. Our audience is young ? 25 to 30 years old ? andvery influenced by K-pop and Instagram, so we write a lot about how welcomingthose places are.”

Hamdi of Halal Travel Guide agreed. “Weencourage Muslims to seek culturally immersive travel experiences outside ofthe traditional Muslim-friendly destinations such as Dubai and Morocco,” shesaid.

“Muslims are looking for added value totheir trips ? from private beaches where women can bathe without men to disturbthem, and more than this, trips that offer the Muslim traveller the chance toexperience something completely different.”

Link->https://www.nst.com.my/world/2019/01/452556/halal-holidays-halal-travel-industry-soars-rise-muslim-travellers