VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh speaking at the conference (Photo: Organising Board)

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh stated, Muslim tourism is identified as a potential tourism market, among the target market group that needs to be promoted in the coming period.

It is estimated that there are more than 1.7 billion Muslims, accounting for nearly a quarter of the world's population. In Southeast Asia alone, there are currently nearly 300 million Muslims. Muslims love to travel and are the group with the high travel spending in the world, so destination countries always pay special attention to this group of tourists.

According to the Global Muslim Index Report, in recent years the number of Muslims travelling around the world has increased quite rapidly. If in 2013 there were about 108 million Muslim travelling, by 2019 it reached 160 million arrivals. After 2 years of pandemic, from 2021 the recovery speed of the Muslim tourist market has gradually stabilised. In 2023, it is forecast that about 140 million Muslim tourists will travel around the world. By 2028, it is estimated that about 230 million Muslim tourists will travel abroad, spending up to 225 billion USD.

For the Vietnamese tourism market, the number of international Muslim visitors to our country remains modest. Currently, Muslim tourism in our country has not really received proper attention or investment. The specific demands to Muslim tourists have not received much investment.

Vietnam's tourism development strategy until 2030 has identified the need to pay attention to developing new and potential markets, including the Middle East and India markets… In recent years, Vietnam's tourism industry has also conducted many promotional activities aimed at the Muslim market to attract tourists from this market such as: Organising to welcome Fam trip and Press trip groups from Muslim countries to visit, learn, promote Vietnamese tourism products, and exchange tourism businesses of the two countries by the Vietnamese Embassies in Middle Eastern countries acts as the focal point to coordinate with the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism and tourism businesses of the two countries to organise the event.

VNAT has coordinated with the Vietnamese Embassy in Iran organised a famtrip group including Vietnamese tourism businesses and Vietnam's state tourism management agency to visit Iran, learn Iranian tourism products, culture and Muslim country, and connecting tourism businesses of the two countries. All of these activities are intended to contribute to promoting the development of the Muslim tourist market to Vietnam.

The discussion session chaired by VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh (middle), Deputy Director in charge of Quang Ninh Department of Tourism Nguyen Huyen Anh (right) and Chairman of Quang Ninh Tourism Association Nguyen The Hue (left) (Photo: Organising Board)

To attract the Muslim tourist market, VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh suggested focusing on a number of contents: developing the Muslim market with high affordability, long-term travel, especially focusing on the Middle East region; Focus on developing and expanding Halal restaurants to serve the culinary demands of Muslim tourists. Muslims are forced to use Halal food according to strict standards. Focus on building prayer places specifically for Muslims in public areas, restaurants, hotels, entertainment spots... ensuring convenience for visitors everywhere, at all times.

To truly take advantage of the potential of these tourists, cooperation is needed from authorities, specialised local destination management units and businesses, to build a new ecosystem that is suitable for this specific tourist flow in the future, stressed VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh.

Overview of the conference (Photo: Organising Board)

Ms. Nguyen Huyen Anh, Deputy Director in charge of Quang Ninh Department of Tourism said, in the coming time, Quang Ninh tourism will strengthen promotion and advertising activities and closely follow the promotion programmes of VNAT to the Muslim tourist market. The Department will propose the province to prioritise cooperation in developing a network of direct flights to India and Muslim countries. In addition, strengthen and encourage tourism businesses to continue investing in upgrading technical facilities and specialised services to serve Muslim tourists. In addition, Quang Ninh tourism industry will also strengthen training and fostering expertise, skills, and knowledge of foreign affairs with Muslim tourists for tourism human resources.

At the conference, there were several speakers with topics about Halal cuisine, consumption habits and skills to serve Muslim tourists, communication solutions to attract the Muslim tourist market to Quang Ninh… The delegates also discussed content related to tourism marketing to the Muslim tourist market, upgrading service infrastructure to serve Muslim tourists, and inviting experts in Islamic studies to train workers in the tourism industry, meeting the unique demands of these specialised tourists.

Tourism Information Technology Center