Turkey loses spot to Indonesia in giant Muslim travel market: Index

Turkey has dropped one spot to fourth among top performing destinations of a sector expected to be worth $220 billion by 2020, according to the Global Muslim Travel Index 2017 released by Mastercard and CrescentRating in Jakarta on May 3. 

The index saw Turkey lose its position behind Malaysia, which kept the top spot, while Indonesia moved up to third place in the overall rankings.

The study, which covers 130 destinations, showed a number of non-Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) destinations in Asia move up the rankings, a result of the concerted effort to adapt their services to cater to and attract the Muslim travel market.

Singapore retained its pole position among the non-OIC destinations, with Thailand, the U.K., South Africa and Hong Kong rounding up the top five. Japan moved up two places to take sixth spot with Spain entering the top 10 for the first time.

The study showed that the Muslim travel market will continue to grow at a fast pace with the sector estimated to grow to $220 billion in 2020. 

It is expected to grow a further $80 billion to reach $300 billion by 2026, according to the study.

It was also revealed that in 2016 there were an estimated 121 million Muslim visitor arrivals globally - up from 117 million in 2015 - and is forecasted to reach 156 million visitors by 2020 representing 10 percent of the travel segment.

Asia has remained the leading region in the world in terms of attractiveness to Muslim tourists with an average index score of 57.6, with Africa coming in second place at 47.0, followed by Oceania at 43.8, Europe at 39.9 and the Americas at 33.7. 

Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of CrescentRating & HalalTrip, said the index continues to reveal detailed insights...