Muslim Travel is Booming, A New Study Shows

A new study covering travel for the Muslim population has revealed that Muslim tourists represent a major market for the travel industry, at an estimated worth of $126.1 billion last year.

The study entitled "Global Muslim Lifestyle Travel Market Landscape & Consumer Needs" was put out by DinarStandard which is a marketing research and advisory firm focused on Muslim marketing and the firm Crescentrating, which has pioneered Halal-friendly travel.

The study highlights how tourism destinations, airlines, hotels and resorts can benefit by engaging in this Muslim market that is growing in affluence and has a young demographic. The study exemplifies how Muslim tourist spending will grow to US 1$192 billion by 2020 and represent 13.4% of the global expenditure.

It also noted that the top countries for outbound tourism in 2011 were Iran, UAE, Indonesia and Kuwait and that Muslim communities residing in non-Muslim countries have substantial outbound tourism expenditure share. The most ample of these markets include Russia, the UK, France and Germany.

To date, the Muslim tourism market is larger than the world's largest spending tourist market in the world which is Germany. The study covered popular destinations that cater to a Muslim clientele such as Australia's Gold Coast's by offering a Gold Coast Ramadan Lounge.

Top destinations for Muslim tourists include Malaysia, Turkey, UAE, Singapore, Russia, China, France, Thailand and Italy. The study found that Malaysia attracts Muslim tourists even during Ramadan and that the availability of Halal food options was important to Muslim travelers.

According to breakingtravelnews.com, Fazal Baharden CEO of Crescentrating said, "This Study will now let travel industry players to evaluate the potential of the Muslim lifestyle travel market by region, and develop key engagement frameworks for a high impact market strategy."

He also noted that with the speedy growth of Muslim travelers there was a need to for this type if study.