Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Although there are many beautiful places around the world to visit, only some of these tourism destinations can cater to Muslims more than others, since many Muslims feel more comfortable in Muslim countries due to food, prayer or even security issues.

Mastercard and CrescentRating, a leading authority on Halal-friendly travel, published a report of the Global Muslim Travel Index 2016 (GMTI), which analyzes the trends and needs of Muslim travelers.

GMTI 2016 is the most comprehensive research done on the Halal/Muslim travel, tourism and hospitality market. It analyses 130 destinations across the globe to create an Index to benchmark destinations in the Muslim Travel Market.

Within the survey covering 130 tourist destinations, Azerbaijan, a Muslim-majority nation in the South Caucasus, has ranked 20th among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

The country’s incomparable historical and cultural heritage, as well as expertise in halal hospitality, allowed Azerbaijan to enter the list of the top Muslim holidays destinations. In Azerbaijan, where modernity and intellect meet Islam and modern cultures, Muslim visitors can have an unforgettable experience.

Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey occupied top places in the index.

The research also revealed that, in 2015, the approximate number of Muslim tourists in the world reached 117 million, what makes up about 10 percent of the tourist market. Experts expect that the index will grow up to 168 million people by 2020, comprising 11 percent of the total market, worth about $200 billion.

Asia and Europe became the two leading regions in the world, attracting Muslim travelers, occupying 87 percent of the market.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan welcomed a record high in the number of Arab tourists in 2016.

Those tourists from the Gulf countries, which once chose European countries, including Turkey for the rest, and spent there millions of dollars, now favor Azerbaijan as a tourist destination by force of instability reigning in many countries.

The country enjoying fascinating nature and captivating history, was able to upgrade its tourism potential in an effort to raise the non-oil sector of economy. Developing infrastructure, improving service sector, similarities in culture and most importantly safe leisure in the land embodying mixture of East and West are the main components that attract tourists to the Land of Fire.

Another reason for the rising number of Arab tourists is the introduction of a simplified visa regime from this year for citizens of Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and other countries.

Overall, in the first half of 2016, Azerbaijan was visited by 25,000 tourists from Arab countries, while the figure approximately 22,000 people or eight times more than in the same period of last year.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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