Wednesday 10 April 2013

Crescentrating's Halal Friendly Travel (CRaHFT) names Asia’s Muslim-friendliest destinations for 2013


Crescentrating consulting company recently made public its findings from its Ranking of Halal Friendly Holiday Destinations for 2013. Known as the ‘Crescentrating’s Halal Friendly Travel (CRaHFT) Ranking’, the survey has been published for three years now and serves as a benchmark for countries targeting the growing Muslim travel market.

According to a study released in 2012 by the same company, the global Muslim tourism market in 2011 is estimated to have generated some US$126.1 billion in outbound expenditure (excluding core religious travel expenditure of Hajj & Umrah). This represents 12.3% of the total global outbound tourism expenditure in 2011. The world’s Muslim population represents close to 1.7 billion individuals with many of them now belonging to consuming middle class segment, especially in Asia (particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia and in India).

The survey about the top 50 Halal friendly holiday destinations is divided between OIC and non-OIC destinations (OIC-Organization of Islamic Cooperation). However for a better overview of the top destinations on the Asian continent, TravelDailyNews.asia aggregated all the data to produce a single table covering Asia Pacific. The rankings are based on the level of Halal food availability, prayer facilities, Halal friendly accommodation at the main tourist locations of the destination.

Asia is doing particularly well. From the top 10 Halal Friendly Holidays Destinations for 2013, Malaysia is the favourite for the third time in a row. With Halal food and prayer place availability in any tourist locations throughout the country, Malaysia provides a completely worry free holiday for Muslim holidaymakers. Singapore ranks also number one in the top ten Non-OIC Destinations while Thailand achieved also an impressive score, being the top third favourite destination for Muslim travellers in Non-OIC countries. According to Crescentrating, Indonesia remains a destination offering one of the world’s biggest potentials in attracting the Muslim Travellers. Indonesia is now focusing increasingly on making it easier to locate Halal restaurants and other services for Muslim visitors. In total, from the top 20 countries –OIC and Non-OIC- nine of them are located in Asia Pacific.

Ranking of Halal Friendly Holiday Destinations for 2013 in Asia-Pacific and their scores

Destinations
CRaHFT Score
Malaysia
8.3
Singapore
6.3
Indonesia
6.1
Brunei
6.0
Thailand
5.9
Bangladesh
5.9
Maldives
5.7
India
5.6
Sri Lanka
5.2
Pakistan
5.0
Australia
4.7
Hong Kong/China
4.5

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