Muslim-Friendly Travel Set for Strong Recovery in 2023, Report Predicts

Before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, halal tourism was experiencing strong growth. In total, nearly 160 million Muslim travelers made trips in 2019 compared to 42 million travelers in 2020, reveals the latest Crescentrating report. In total, more than 90% of these 42 million people traveled in the first quarter of the year, before many countries decided to close their borders.

Crescentrating predicts that halal tourism will have recovered 80% of the departures recorded in 2019, before the health crisis, by 2023. "The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the travel industry. However, tourism is a resilient sector and we all look forward to the gradual reopening of international borders for travel," comments Crescentrating founder Fazal Bahardeen, noting that 2021 started with positive news around the development and approval of vaccines by various destinations.

According to him, a global effort to vaccinate the population remains essential to accelerate the recovery of tourism at a time when new variants of Covid-19 are raging in many countries. Other important factors for the recovery of tourism activity: the emergence of new travel experiences by 2023, the multiplication of "travel bubbles".

The report also states that Malaysia remains the favorite destination for Muslim tourists since 2019, followed by Turkey (2nd) and Saudi Arabia (3rd). Among non-OIC countries, Singapore, Taiwan and the United Kingdom are part of the top 20.