Untapped Halal-friendly tourism potential for Taiwan

Abstract

Being the second largest belief, and fastest growing economy, many of the people from Muslim countries started travelling outside their countries due to increased economic prosperity and curiosity of exploring different cultures. The present study focuses on a non-Muslim country Taiwan, where the government is taking initiatives to attract the new segment of Muslim travellers. To support such initiatives, Halal-friendly-tourism is promoted in Taiwan. The pandemic period of 2019-2022 led to exploring different forms of tourism for reviving the ailing tourism sector, and cultural and heritage tourism is gaining prominence in this direction. Taiwan is trying to showcase its cultural heritage to capture the Muslim tourists from Islamic countries by offering Halal-friendly tourism. Furthermore, Taiwan is ranked second after Singapore with a Religious Diversity Index Score of 8.2. The present study focuses on understanding the attributes which motivate Muslim tourists coming from Islamic countries, which in turn provides insights on developing the Halal-friendly-tourism market in Taiwan. Result of the qualitative research, interviewing two groups of people, namely, entrepreneurs and visitors, shows a lack of three major attributes, namely, availability of Halal food, proper prayer rooms and Islamic toilet facilities. Initiatives need to be taken by authorities to ensure Halal certification, pricing of commodities, providing wide publicity for promoting Halal-friendly-tourism, and also maintaining Muslim-friendly environment, not only in cities but also in outskirts