RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has been ranked fourth among the countries to have been visited by Muslims this year, the Global Muslim Travel Index (GMIT) has reported. “The MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2015 saw Saudi Arabia come fourth on the list behind UAE (United Arab Emirates), Turkey and Malaysia,” it said.
The three countries took the top spots “for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) destinations” and among the top 10 in the Middle East region, it added.
“Singapore came first for the non-OIC destinations, which also saw Thailand, UK (United Kingdom), South Africa and France make the top five.”
The GMTI looks at in-depth data covering 100 destinations, creating an overall index, based on a number of criteria. This is the first time such thorough insights have been provided into one of the fastest-growing tourism sectors in the world at present GMTI said it provides travelers, governments, travel services and investors comprehensive benchmarks across a number of important criteria to enable them to track the health and growth of this travel industry.
The study also revealed that in 2014, this segment was worth $145 billion with 108 million Muslim travellers representing 10 percentof the entire travel economy.
The Muslim travel market is forecasted to grow to 150 million visitors by 2020 and 11 percent of the entire segment with a value projected to grow to $200 billion.
“Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia saw the highest number of Muslim arrivals into the country in 2014 from across the world with 10.2 million which accounts for 73 percent of the total arrivals,” it added.
“The MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index has set a real precedent for the tourism industry,” said Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of CrescentRating & HalalTrip.
“Not only is it the most in-depth research that we have undertaken so far on the fast-growing Muslim travel market, but has provided all stakeholders with some invaluable insight into how the halal-friendly tourism sector is growing and developing from a global perspective.”
“We are pleased to partner with CrescentRating to develop the Global Muslim Travel Index as we see it as an extension of our efforts in giving consumers ease of mind when traveling through our seamless payment solutions,” said Matthew Driver, President, Southeast Asia, MasterCard.
“Travel continues to be a core passion for consumers and we are confident the GMTI will prove to be a trusted resource for this important, fast-growing traveler segment.”
All 100 destinations in the GMTI were scored against a backdrop of criteria which included suitability as a family holiday destination, the level of services and facilities it provides, accommodation options, marketing initiatives as well as visitor arrivals, it said.
Each criterion was then weighted to make up the overall index score. Malaysia scored an Index score of 83.8,followed by Turkey at 73.8 while Saudi Arabia had a GMTI of 71.3.
GMTI40, which will be updated quarterly around the year, will track the average score of the top 20 OIC and non-OIC destinations and will form the key index to monitor the performance of the Muslim travel segment.
The overall average score for 40 destinations (GMTI40) currently stands at 56 while the overall average GMTI score for the complete 100 destinations is at 43.8. From a regional perspective, Asia Pacific destinations lead with an average GMTI score of 54. — SG
