SOUTH KOREA: More Halal Restaurants Planned

The Korean government is planning to expand the number of Muslim-friendly restaurants here.

Korea Tourism Organization announced that it will expand the number of such restaurants from 135 to 170 to help reach its goal of hosting 1.2 million Muslim tourists this year.

It started receiving applications from local restaurants Monday and will continue to do so until April 28.

The measure is part of the KTO’s plan to diversify the country’s tourism market, in anticipation of declining numbers of Chinese tourists due to a recent diplomatic spat between Beijing and Seoul surrounding the deployment of an advanced US missile defense system here.

The Korea-US alliance decided last year to station the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system here, which China claimed was against its strategic interest.

The Beijing government has been curbing Chinese tours to Korea, including a reported order to ban its tourism agencies from selling Korea-related programs.

This is a severe blow for the local tourism industry, as 8.05 million of the 17 million foreigners who visited the country last year were Chinese.

“Since the need to expand the tourism market is greater than ever, we will attempt to raise the number of Muslim tourists from 980,000 last year to 1.2 million,” said Park Jeong-ha, director of KTO’s marketing planning team.

The number of Muslims visiting Korea in 2016 increased by 33 percent compared to the year before.

Meanwhile, the KTO has been seeking to expand the number of tourists from countries other than China.

“We allocated a lot of budget that was originally directed at the Chinese market to other regions like Southeast Asian countries,” said a KTO official.

The KTO’s standard for Muslim-friendly restaurants has four categories; those that are halal-certified by the Korea Muslim Federation, those that are self-certified by owners and cooks as being Muslim and using exclusively halal ingredients, those that sell halal food but also sell alcohol which is banned for Muslims-- and those that are free of pork, which is also banned by Islam.

Korea Tourism Organization plans to attend tourism exhibitions in countries with a large Muslim population, such as one in Kazakhstan in late April along with tourism trade shows in Malaysia and Indonesia in the second quarter.

The KTO will also launch a weeklong halal festival for Muslim travelers in September, during which local food made according to halal rules will be featured.

However, whether many Korean restaurants will apply for the halal certification remains to be seen, as some feel that the certification would not be worth the effort and cost.

Cho Hee-kyung, the owner of three Michelin star restaurant Gaon and one Michelin star restaurant Bicena, expressed difficulties in receiving the halal mark.

“In the past, I looked to receive the certification, but there are lots of preparations to be made. Everything has to be different, from the cutting board to knives,” she said, adding that her restaurants have given up on it.

To be halal-approved, operators of the restaurant also have to undergo a training program presented by the Certified Halal Internal Auditor.

Furthermore, Cho said that her restaurants -- which are popular among foreign visitors -- has attracted plenty of Muslim customers with its vegetarian menu, even without the halal seal of approval.

Instead of just focusing on halal certificates, she said the more important thing would be to find aspects of Korean traditional dishes that can be appreciated by foreigners.

“One of the strong points of Korean dishes is its vegetarian menu. I think it would be better for us to present something new that has its own value,” she said.

Despite this, Cho agreed that more Muslim-friendly restaurants would be “the way to go,” given the huge Muslim demographic.

“It is a huge market, and it’s important to target it. As a restaurant, it is only natural to want to attract a wider range of customers,” she said.

PAKISTAN: Halal Food Zone To Be Set Up In Faisalabad

Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (FIEDMC) is introducing a Halal Processing Food Zone in Pakistan at the Faisalabad Industrial Estate.

“FIEDMC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Halal Food Council. The processed Halal meat and food will be exported to international markets within a day, a concept which has not been introduced before,” FIEDMC Chief Operating Officer Amir Saleemi said.

He pointed out that many companies involved in producing halal products profess to selling fresh halal food, but no one has ever exported fresh halal food using airline services.

There is a huge demand for halal meat and other products in Dubai and this project would enable us to export and meet the demands in a day’s time.

Many local and international food companies are expected to take part in the project to export their products. One of the largest international poultry processing company CP Foods is already interested in investing in Faisalabad’s Halal Food Zone. Agroventure Swiss Company installed the first cereal factory in Faisalabad. Value Addition City has now also purchased land in Halal Food Zone.

Halal Holidays – New Design For HalalBooking.com Website

Angel’s Peninsula Resort – Sandy Beach


HalalBooking.com – the world’s leading website for online booking of Halal Holidays – has recently re-launched its website with a completely new design. The website has an advanced hotel search and book functionality, while being very user-friendly and picture-rich. The website receives bookings from over 70 countries worldwide.

The website offers carefully selected holiday destinations, which cater for the needs of Muslim family holidaymakers. The following categories of holidays can be booked online:

Beach Resorts – family holidays with great facilities for kids and ladies
City Hotels – City Breaks with Daily Heritage Tours
Thermal Resorts – health holidays with thermal springs treatments
Private Villas – with swimming pools, offering full privacy for families

Resorts, hotels and villas have separate swimming pools, spa and leisure facilities for women-only and for families. Some resorts have mixed beach areas for families and some resorts feature women-only private beach areas. These resorts provide a wonderful atmosphere for a family to enjoy their holiday together in a suitable environment, while catering for children by their special clubs and games rooms. All entertainment programmes, which are within the norms of Islam, are enjoyable and family-friendly. Cafés and restaurants in these hotels serve halal food and non-alcoholic drinks. In private villas, guests can order halal grocery packs in advance. There are also daily heritage tours to explore the city.

Majority of customers of HalalBooking.com website are families with children. The website has some unique features, which make online searching and booking experience for families smoother. All prices on the website are total and calculated exactly for the whole family, taking into account both a number of guests and exact ages of all children. Besides this ‘Precise Total Family Pricing’ feature, the website also offers ‘Room Suitability Guarantee’. The website automatically determines and allows booking of those rooms in a hotel, which are suitable for a given family. These features save the customers’ time and help to avoid surprises when they arrive at the hotel and are asked to pay extras for a bigger room.

Among many other features of the website it is worth noting that the homepage always shows the best hotel offers for coming weeks. The hotels can be booked in 45 currencies and 7 languages, using all popular online payment cards. The website has easy-to-use Search Box to find hotels by date & number of guests. It can be used on touch-screen devices, and is supported by customer Call Centres in 20 countries worldwide.

The company actively works with many hoteliers and tourism bodies around the world (in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, etc), helping them to develop their halal services, and regularly adds new holiday destinations to its website.

The company hopes its customers enjoy using the new website and always welcomes feedback from their customers.

UAE: Halal Food, Lifestyle And Tourism Sector Grow In Popularity

The global Halal food and lifestyle sector is expected to grow by 6 per cent by 2020, according to selected findings from the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2015/2016, which will be released in full at the end of this month. The report is commissioned and supported by the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre (DIEDC) in partnership with Thomson Reuters, and in collaboration with Dinar Standard.

Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the Global Islamic Economy Summit (GIES) this year will bring together thinkers and business leaders to address these issues. These include Temel Kotil, CEO, Turkish Airlines, Simon Coombs, CEO, Shaza Hotels, Abdulla Al Maini, Director General, ESMA, Alia Khan, Chairwoman, Islamic Fashion Design Council, and Hourya Mohamed Laarabi, Experience Development Professional, among many others.

The full State Global Islamic Economy Report will be revealed before the Summit. For more information about GIES 2015, please visit: http://www.giesummit.com/en/gie-summit/.

In partnership with the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre and Dubai Chamber, Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, is organising the second edition of the Global Islamic Economy Summit. Taking place on Oct 5 and 6, the Summit is expected to bring together over 2,000 business leaders to discuss issues and opportunities in the growing Islamic economy.

The Summit will tackle challenges in family tourism, Halal food, pharmaceuticals and personal care, fashion, media and recreation, as well as other important aspects of the Islamic economy.

The global Muslim market spent $142 billion on travel in 2014, and is expected to reach $233 billion by 2020. The most popular destination countries for Muslim tourists are Malaysia, Turkey and the UAE, which is outpacing other countries in terms of hotel development. To meet that growth, new channels are being created, such as HalalBooking.com, a travel search and booking website for Halal-conscious travellers. The website expects their bookings for their Turkey-based hotels to reach 10 million per hotel by the end this year and in 2016.

Although the Halal travel sector, also known as “Shariah-compliant”, is expected to grow by 8.6 per cent by 2020, some investors are still reluctant to invest in “Muslim-friendly” hotels, for fear of revenue loss associated with not serving alcohol. Banqueting, however, is considered a viable alternative revenue-generating option for dry hotels. According to Riyanto Sofyan, CEO of Sofyan Hotels, “The Halal tourism industry is not limited to Muslims, but rather extols Islamic values that are universal and inclusive, helping to broaden our market reach and attract a wider customer base, regardless of religion.”

The Halal food sector is expected to grow by 5.8 per cent by 2020, with the demand for ethical treatment of animals alone resulting in a $100 billion organic food market. Although the principle of treating animals is embodied within Halal food, educating Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries about the Halal sector and its standards and accreditation continues to be a challenge.