Global Muslim Lifestyle Travel Market 2012
A must have for airlines, tourism destinations & hotels/resorts July 29, 2012: A new groundbreaking study, ‘Global Muslim Lifestyle Travel Market: Landscape & Consumer Needs,’ shows that Muslim tourists globally represent a major niche market worth $126.1 billion in 2011 growing at a higher 4.8% through 2020, compared to global average of 3.8%. In a challenging global economic environment, the Study highlights how airlines, tourism destinations, and hotels/resorts can benefit by engaging with a market that has a young demographic, is growing in affluence, and is increasingly asserting its unique needs on the tourism industry.
Download the free†Executive†Summary†(see right column) or purchase full study.
Consider this:
- Australia’s Gold Coast is attracting Muslim tourists by offering a Gold Coast Ramadan Lounge
- In Thailand, spaoutlets have introduced the concept of Muslim friendly spas in a bid to lure tourists from the Middle East
- Global Health City, in Chennai, India, has gotten Halal certified to better serve its growing medical tourists from Muslim countries
- Even in Muslim majority destinations, hotels/resorts such as De Palma Group of Hotels in Malaysia, Al Jawhara Hotel in Dubai, Amer Group of Resorts in Egypt, Ciragan Palace
- Kempinski Hotel in Turkey are offering Muslim lifestyle focussed services
- Airlines and destinations are just beginning to pay attention
Chart: Outbound Tourism Expenditure, 20062017 (in US$ millions)
However, as this study shows, there is a multibillion dollar customer base whose latent needs are yet to be met by the tourism industry. Muslim tourists may very well be the largest untapped niche market of the tourism Industry.
This Study estimates that the global Muslim tourism market in 2011 was $126.1 billion in outbound expenditure (excluding core religious travel expenditure of Hajj & Umrah, but including leisure, business, and rest of tourism segments) This expenditure is 12.3% of the total global outbound tourism expenditure in 2011 of $1,034 billion as estimated by (UNWTO) World Tourism Organization Comparatively this Muslim tourism market as a whole is larger than the largest spending tourist market in the world – Germany – and almost twice that of China’s in 2011 MENA markets represent 60% of total global Muslim tourist outbound expenditure in 2011 The top Outbound Muslim tourism source country is Saudi Arabia in 2011, followed by Iran, UAE, Indonesia and Kuwait Muslim communities living in nonMuslim countries also have sizable outbound tourism expenditure share. The largest of these markets are Germany, Russia, France and UK The top destinations for Muslim tourists are Malaysia, Turkey, and UAE.
The following six markets are Singapore, Russia, China France, Thailand and Italy Overall, which of the following are important to you when travelling for leisure? top answers were, “Halal Food” (67%), followed by “Overall price” (53%), and “Muslimfriendly experience” (49%).
