Paper Title: Halal Tourism Beyond 2020: Concepts, Opportunities and Future Research Directions

Author:        Punit Moris Ekka

Publisher:    Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 15 (1), 42 – 58. 

Muslim population comprises one-fourth of the global population. In 2060,31.1% of the 3 billion people will be Muslims.

In complying with Islamic teachings, Muslims want to have Halal options of banking, investments, food and apparel.

Nonetheless, in many other product segments, there is no distinction between Halal and conventional products and services. In Fiqh-ul-Muamlaat, except Haram, other things are considered Mubah. Hence, instead of a positive Halal list, a negative non-Halal list is enough.

This will ensure that unnecessary niche segments are not created which may trivialize the concept of Halal, which is a serious issue and concern in other matters. The author seems to have given this point less attention. Focusing on the negative list will ensure that regulatory cost does not increase which may affect the price competitiveness of Halal products and make them costly and less affordable.

As per Duman, “Halal tourism is the activities of Muslims, traveling and staying in places outside their usual environment.” Within Halal tourism, pilgrimage to Holy places like Mecca and Medina has a major share. A great majority of people also travel to Karbala, Mashhad in Iran and other historical places in the Muslim world, such as Istanbul.

Halal tourism also includes travel for proselytizing activities. It is quite active in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. 

Some Muslim regions also attract tourism for recreation, such as Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, Dubai, Maldives, Qatar, Baku, coastal areas of Indonesia and northern areas of Pakistan, for instance.

Halal tourism also includes sports tourism. Recently, Qatar organized FIFA World Cup 2022. UAE regularly hosts cricket competitions. Pakistan and Bangladesh also host cricket competitions. ASEAN countries also have strong interregional tourism for sports, education, business and employment.

Halal tourism and religious tourism has overlap, but there are differences as well. For instance, Sikhs visiting temples in Pakistan or Buddhists visiting temples in South East Asian Muslim regions will fall in religious tourism, but not in Halal tourism since the client or customer is not Muslim seeking a Halal good, service or experience.  

Halal tourism is connected with many ancillary service providers, such as Halal hotels and restaurants. Just like with conventional tourism, Halal tourism is also a service. All related aspects of infrastructure, energy sustainability, human resource, pricing, logistics, marketing, service quality, convenience, security, privacy and accessibility also become important here.      

From an economics perspective, Halal tourism is a segment which service providers can cater to with minimal increase in cost. They need to adopt certain administrative steps and screens to cater to Halal tourism. Rather than adding more infrastructure, they can save on infrastructure. For instance, serving no alcohol with food, providing a prayer area, providing private area for families and women, using Halal ingredients in kitchen, providing toilet shower and WC in restrooms, avoiding loud music, having no casinos or pub area etc.

The paper does not discuss the issue of Halal certification in detail and what implications will it have on customers’ trust and also the cost of providing a Halal good or service. Centralized testing and standardization can help in avoiding duplication of regulatory costs in different jurisdictions. Bilateral agreements between trading countries as well as global standardization would help in avoiding duplication of regulatory costs. OIC member countries do not have significant intra-bloc trade of Halal goods. Hence, global standardization is important to ensure that intra-bloc trade and trade with non-OIC countries follows global standardization rules.