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Guest author:
- DATU OMAR M. PANGARUNGAN, ex-Diplomat, Vice President for External Affairs, Jameo Al-Islamie, Islamic Center, Marawi City
MARAWI CITY — In 2019, Muslim tourism has contributed US$180 billion to the global economy. It is further expected to grow to $300 billion in the coming years. In the highly competitive international tourism marketplace, the fast-growing Muslim tourism is nowadays considered as an important niche market.
During my long stint in the Middle East and some official trips to Muslim countries like Turkey, in Africa, Malaysia, and Brunei, many businessmen conveyed to me there frustrations in visiting the Philippines because of the absence of Mosques in popular places like BGC (Bonifacio Global City) in Taguig City, Eastwood in Quezon City, and Ayala Central Business District (CBD) in Makati, all in Metro Manila, and the lack of guidelines pertaining to hotel establishments frequented by Muslims travellers.
For example, absence of prayer mats and hotel rooms that do not have stickers pointing to the Qibla or “Prayer Direction” in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Added to these concerns are their problems on where to find dining restaurants exclusively serving Halal food.
If the Philippines wishes to take full advantage of Muslim tourism it must bear in mind to minimize the possible inconveniences the Muslim travellers may experience while travelling in the country.
Recently though, I was happy to learn of the steady increase of food entrepreneurs engaging in halal-friendly tourism attributes/environment which they make available and easily accessible. In the not remote past, many rich Muslim travellers were worried of the absence of Muslim-Friendly Accommodations (MFA), but thanks to the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) and their collaborative work with the Department of Tourism (DOT) yielded positive results with the creation of a program that accredits Muslim-Friendly Accommodation Establishments.
This program will definitely strengthen the country’s attraction as a Muslim tourism destination. It has given teeth to section 2 (d) of Republic Act No. 9593, which provides that the State shall seek to create a favorable image of the Philippines within the international community.
Related: Islamic City of Marawi: The Shangri-La of Southern Philippines
To back this up is of the utmost importance to conduct a strong tourism information campaign (Muslim-related brochures) with the theme “Philippines a Muslim-Friendly Tourism Destination” to pave the way for the tremendous inroad of Muslim tourists coming to the country.
On food and meat concerns, members of the diplomatic communities in Metro Manila had many times conveyed to me their predicament to find places and hypermarkets where meat stores offering halal meats should not be displayed side by side with pork meat as they worry about the danger of contamination of cut beef meat being mixed with pork meat and to make halal-friendly products available for Muslim visitors in the hotels, restaurants, and tourist sites.
For the above reasons, these good number of moneyed family tourists travelling in big numbers, staying longer in 5-Star Hotels, and spending more than a thousand dollar a day prefer travelling to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia where there is a clear understanding of their needs, food requirements and behavior as Muslim travellers performing daily prayers five times a day.
The mantra for the establishment of prayers rooms in public places, including shopping malls, is long delayed and priority attention should be given to these concerns if we want to capture a big number of world tourists. In relation with this, the Philippine business community should also have a big slice of the trillion dollar global halal food market.
One CEO of a huge food manufacturing company once said and I quote: “Mark, if we can have just 1 percent of this halal trillion dollar halal food market buhay na buhay na ang Pilipinas.
This statement triggered positive response to my organized outbound food missions to the Middle East. I succeeded and conquered the Arab Food Mainstream Market but much has to be done to attract Muslim global tourists by telling and assuring them the Philippines is ready to welcome Muslim travellers with their concerns now in place!
This is now the job of the DOT! But, are they ready, because DOT does not seem to give so much attention to Middle East countries despite the introduction of the program: “The Philippines a Muslim-Friendly Tourism Destination” and why?
That’s a thousand dollar question!
Tourism in Bangsamoro region
BARMM: To boost tourism in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), I am one with the suggestion for a private sector initiative heavily focused on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to boost tourism, specifically to develop infrastructure, promote “Muslim-friendly” tourism, and foster sustainable, community-based, and eco-tourism projects.
The BARMM tourism and food industry in the private sector is encouraged to partner with the government to fund operations of tourism infrastructures like hotels, resorts, and transportations. But the development of Halal industry is of paramount importance and these include halal tourism destinations, and foremost creation of marketing materials that highlight the region’s cultural heritage in Arabic language targeting the Muslim tourists worldwide.
This is a novel strategy and we can utilize the travel tour operators, travel agencies, hoteliers and tour guides to widely disseminate the campaign materials in the targeted Muslim countries. A measure I have successfully launched in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries encouraged people in the travel agencies to ink agreements with their counterparts engaged in various tourism projects related to WOW Philippines.
Along this line, it is of utmost importance to launch a coordinated digital, marketing campaigns to rebrand the region as a peaceful, vibrant, and safe destination. This means enhancing safety and security to ensure a safe environment for visitors. This goal will definitely be a good opportunity for creating private security partnership with business people engaged in this line of business and encourage investments in many areas related to tourism like transportation, handicrafts and cultural products and the list is kilometric and this is where BARMM officials Bangsamoro Board of Investments (BBOI) can offer assistance, including tax incentives, for approved, tourism-related, investments to encourage faster tourism development.
I believe that BARMM Chief Minister Abdulraof A. Macacua can do a lot in promoting tourism and trade with members of the GCC such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, and other Muslim countries. (©)