Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 21st January, 2020
The report (below) has been published by Pear Anderson and shows that eight of the top 10 National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) with the best Muslim friendly online resources are from APAC.
The report examines the NTOs of the top 50 most visited non-Muslim countries in the world and ranks them based on the quality and availability of information that is specifically relevant to Muslim travellers’ faith-based needs, such as halal restaurant, hotel, mosque and prayer room listings.
The top 10 NTOs who scored the highest were from Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Spain, New Zealand and Australia.
62% of the 50 National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) examined had no information available online aimed at helping Muslim tourists to travel within their country, missing a potentially valuable segment. With a growing Muslim population worldwide, the global GDP impact from Muslim travel is set to reach $183 billion by 2020, according to Salam Standard’s Global Economic Impact Of Muslim Tourism And Future Growth 2017 – 2020.
“We decided to commission this report to look in-depth at what NTOs worldwide are doing right with regards to what online information they have and the ways in which they provide it to Muslim tourists – and which NTOs are woefully far behind the trend,” explained Hannah Pearson, the director of Pear Anderson.
“The Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) is doing a wonderful job at promoting itself online as a Muslim friendly destination, with a dedicated mini site, language guide and write ups of in- destination experiences from Muslim key opinion leaders.”
“Concerns for travelling in a way that harmonises with their Islamic beliefs is one of the primary destination drivers for the Muslim segment. If NTOs want to attract Muslim travellers, they need to be more mindful of creating an online strategy to accommodate this, especially during the research phase of trip planning where NTO websites are often used.”
The report below concludes by outlining ways in which NTOs can start creating online resources targeting the Muslim travel market, as well as the full rankings and points methodology.
How online ready are NTOs for Muslim travellers in 2019
