#crescentrating

New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/business/2015/03/04/mastercard-malaysia-top-choice-for-muslim-travellers/

MasterCard: Malaysia top choice for Muslim travellers

SINGAPORE, March 4, 2015:

Malaysia is the most preferred global destination in the fast-growing Muslim travel market, despite two catastrophic air disasters that hit the country’s flag-carrier in 2014, a survey showed today.

Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Indonesia followed Malaysia in the ranking of choice holiday destinations for Muslim travellers, said a report by Islamic travel specialist Crescentrating and payments giant MasterCard.

The report evaluates countries in terms of their attentiveness to the needs of Muslim travellers, including the presence and accessibility of “halal” restaurants with food prepared to Islamic standards, and the provision of prayer rooms at airports, shopping malls and hotels.

Scores in these and other variables were tabulated into a Global Muslim Travel Index in which Muslim-majority Malaysia came on top with a score of 83.8, followed by Turkey (73.8), UAE (72.1), Saudi Arabia (71.3), Qatar (68.2) and Indonesia (67.5).

“For Muslim travellers, Malaysia still remains the top choice simply because it is a great holiday destination for families while offering a very Muslim friendly environment,” said Crescentrating chief executive Fazal Bahardeen.

“This includes everything from excellent attractions, halal food, accommodation, shopping to places for prayers. Malaysia has one of the best infrastructures for the Muslim traveller.”

Fazal said 5.9 million Muslim visitors visited Malaysia in 2014, up from 5.7 million in 2013.

The report, the first carried out jointly by Crescentrating and MasterCard, involved 81 non-Muslim country destinations and 29 Muslim nations.

Its release came just days ahead of the first anniversary of the still-unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 8, 2014 while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

A massive air and underwater search has failed to find any trace of the plane in what remains one of history’s great aviation mysteries.

On July 17 last year, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Despite the twin disasters, arrivals into Malaysia from January to October 2014 rose 9.6% year-on-year — but the number of visitors from China fell 11.2% as most of the passengers aboard MH370 were Chinese nationals, according to the latest Malaysian government figures.

The travel survey showed that non-Islamic countries have made strides in gaining a share of the Muslim travel market, estimated to be worth US$145 billion (RM525.8 billion) in 2014 and forecast to grow to US$200 billion by 2020.

Among the non-Muslim destinations included in the study, Singapore emerged as the top choice followed by Thailand. Taiwan and Japan also got high rankings, placing 10 and 11th, respectively.

Singapore has “some of the best halal food environments”, while Thailand, Japan and Taiwan have taken big steps to meet the needs of Islamic holiday-goers, Fazal said.

Is it easier to be a Muslim traveller today as compared to ten years ago? There are numerous apps created to make it easy for Muslims to venture out of their familiar shores. HalalTrip helps one to choose and discover airlines, hotels, and serving Halal food. Irhal produces online guides to give us more information. CrescentRating has an app to help you pray in the airplane.

With all these apps, it’s easy to feel that it is much easier to travel abroad while keeping my Muslim lifestyle. But what about renewing and keeping our purpose of travel for the purpose of Allah in order to make travel an act of worship, on top of our first intent of travelling be it for business or otherwise.

Yes, all these apps make foreign countries more accessible for the Muslim traveller. But to make better Muslims out of travel, maybe these apps can help renew our intent of travelling? Say, if our original intent is to travel to see the creations of Allah and reflect on his wonders, no app (as of now) can do that, just a conscious awareness and deep contemplation of every occurrence, which happens during your travels.

With technology pushing itself to be more relevant to the user’s location and situation, especially with the creation of Google Glass and wearable tech, I hope there will be apps which push out content relevant to the area that we visit, even when the Muslim traveller is not requesting for the information, to encourage contemplation, or if not, to help the traveller with the intent of their travel ‘for the sake of Allah’.

For example, when they visit Italy for shopping in Milan, and it’s Asar time. Make it possible to tell them not just where to pray and what the local solat time is, and facts about the Muslims in Italy. Did you know that in Italy, there are 1.5 million Muslims but only 8 mosques? This fact makes it easier to contemplate, and appreciate being a Muslim in a majority-Muslim country like Malaysia.