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Singapore. In his days as a jet-setting telecom executive, ready-to-eat meals were a regular part of Fazal Bahardeen’s luggage.

Many of the hotels he stayed at didn’t have halal-certified restaurants for Muslim travelers like the 47-year-old Sri Lankan-born Singaporean.

Rooms lacked markers pointing in the direction of Mecca and employees were unable to answer questions from Muslim guests about their particular needs.

“Being a Muslim, I was getting frustrated by the travel industry and the hotels not being able to provide the right services,” Bahardeen said. “You don’t know what the prayer time is, where the prayer direction is, and you can’t find halal food.”

But halal travel is now gaining popularity as demand for products and services permitted by Islam extends beyond food and interest-free financial instruments, and affluent Muslim travelers make their influence felt.

Halal travel is expected to be worth $100 billion annually within two years, according to Bahardeen, who resigned from a senior management job at a major telecom firm in 2006 and set up his own company to tap into the expected boom.

His Crescentrating is believed to be the only company rating hotels globally for their friendliness to Muslim travelers. It also promotes halal tours.

Travel commentator Yeoh Siew Hoon said there was a real demand for halal travel, led by tourists from Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

“Take Indonesia — it is one of the fastest growing outbound markets in Asia, and is the number one source of visitors to Singapore,” said Yeoh, who operates the industry Web site www.webintravel.com.

“Tourism Australia also produces a guide to halal restaurants due to the growing numbers of travelers from Muslim countries,” she added.

Greg Duffell, chief executive of the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association, said China’s sizeable Muslim population was another potential source of outbound travel.

“A lot of suppliers are now amending their products to meet halal standards,” Duffell said, adding that restaurants and resorts in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam had since begun adapting these standards.

Crescentrating’s highest ratings, six and seven, require a hotel to be free of alcohol, discos and TV channels showing movies unsuitable for families and children. All food and beverages must also be halal.

Globally, only Dubai’s Al Jawhara Garden Hotel has a rating of seven, while three hotels in Saudi Arabia and one in South Africa are rated six.

Bahardeen said that with 1.6 billion increasingly wealthy Muslims worldwide, halal-friendly travel is likely to be the next growth area.

Muslim travelers account for 7 percent to 8 percent of global tourism expenditure, which totaled about $930 billion in 2009, up from just 3 percent or 4 percent 10 years ago, he said.


Agence France-Presse