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| From left: Bahardeen, Stadler, Riyanto and Nader. |
Carel Stadler, Trade & Partnership Manager, Cape Town Tourism, said that countries should take a top-down approach to create awareness about halal travel. "Halal is not niche, it is an emerging market," he said.
While Cape Town has a large Muslim population, he discovered a need to educate the tourism industry as there was a lot of confusion about halal-friendly terminology. "Nobody really knew what halal food really was," he explained.
He also had to address the misconceptions that the Islamic faith is very inflexible and catering to the Muslim traveller would be difficult. "We have trained chefs in halal gourmet cuisine, we've broken down perceptions that people have, to make people understand that little change is required for a large return," he said.
Stadler also shared that one of Cape Town Tourism's early mistakes had been to assume that all Muslims are the same local Muslim population. "We had to educate (the local Muslims) what is acceptable for the Muslim traveller," he said.
Riyanto said 88% of 250 million Indonesians are Muslim, living and breathing the concept of halal. "Halal is in our DNA," he said. "We take halal and the Muslim lifestyle for granted, we don't really care about that. That's our focus point and also our weakness."
The Islamic economy and tourism are both priorities for Indonesia, Sofyan disclosed. Tourism is the second-largest foreign exchange earner for Indonesia, with Muslim travellers accounting for 20% to 22% of the amount. There is a national committee for Islamic economic development headed by the President of Indonesia, while the central bank has a dedicated department for the Islamic economy.
In 2012, the Ministry of Tourism of Indonesia began a halal certification drive and immediately hit a wall. "We got questions like 'why do we have to certify the restaurant? We are already halal, you don't trust me?" Riyanto recalled.
"They would get angry when we asked them to be certified. We explained to the industry that if you want to attract Muslim travellers like what Malaysia and Singapore have done you have to comply to the global standard and that's halal certification and other parameters specified in the GMTI*. We have to (meet) the global standard in order to compete."
"We're seeing this growth but very few tourism authorities are taking real steps like what Indonesia is doing, or South Africa," said Nader.
In an earlier session, Nader had said that halal travel has been boosted by government support and private investors. "These are the ones building the infrastructure – there is a lot of talk, but no action. We need governments to create an environment where investors are comfortable to invest," he said.
During the panel, Nader added, "I commend the Indonesian government on the active steps taken to implementing tourism infrastructure, the airport community, the investment community, the whole chain, they're really putting a lot of effort into that.. it's helping companies like us enter such markets."
Bahardeen agreed that the tourism board and other government entities have to show support for halal travel. "If the investment market is not sure that it is a policy of the government to target that market (they won't invest)," he said. "They don't want to waste their money."
Riyanto said that Lombok had been a success story for tourism. With government-subsidised capacity building, training and marketing, the number of Muslim travellers increased by 40% in one year, he said. The government had spent US$2 to $3 million, whereas tourism income had reached US$400 million. "The government has to support (the industry), otherwise it will not grow," he concluded.
Hashtags: #halalintravel, #itbasia2018
*The Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index rates properties in terms of their Muslim-friendliness.
*The Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index rates properties in terms of their Muslim-friendliness.