ISTANBUL
Turkey has been the second mostly visited country behind Malaysia by Muslim tourists according to the "Global Muslim Lifestyle Tourism Market 2012: Landscape & Consumer Needs Study".
Research about the Muslim tourists and the market was held by New York based specialized research, advisory and business media firm DinarStandard and Singapore based, largest Halal-friendly travel website, CrescentRating in 14 countries.
According to the research, in 2011, the Muslim global tourism market was worth 126.1 billion USD in expenditure which created the 12.3 percent of the global tourism expenditure.
In the research, they stated that by 2020, the Muslim global tourism's expenditure which is 12.3 percent in the global tourism expenditure will increase 13.4 percent to 192 billion USD.
CEO of CrescentRating, Fazal Bahardeen, talked about the research and stated, "This research will help the players of the tourism industry improve their services and develop high marketing strategies by analysing the lifestyle of Muslims in the tourism market."
Rafi-uddin Shikoh, the CEO and Managing Director of DinarStandard, said, "Muslim tourists generate the largest undiscovered market of the tourism industry. Airlines, destinations and hotels/resorts can benefit tremendously by catering to the unique Muslim lifestyle travel drivers of Halal food, family friendly environments, religious practices accommodation, gender relation nuances, and other areas."
According to the research, Turkey was the second mostly visited country by Muslim tourists; Malaysia held the first place in the list.
After Turkey, other popular destinations between Muslim visitors include the UAE, Singapore, Russia, China, France, Thailand and Italy.
In 2011, the 60 percent of total global Muslim tourist expenditure was to Middle East and North African region.
Germany took the first place on outbound tourism expenditure share by Muslim communities living in non-Muslim countries. Russia followed on the second place and France on the third where North African Muslims live intensely.
More, according to Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism's ins and outs of border statistics', in 2011, 31.4 million tourists came to Turkey.
Below is the table showing the number of Muslim tourists and their nationalities visited Turkey between January-December in 2011:
