Halal Tourism: The Practices of Halal Hotels in Alanya, Turkey

Abstract

The numbers of Muslims travelling to Turkey is increasing day by day. Although Turkey is one of most visited halal tourism destinations in the world, papers related to halal hospitality practices in Turkey are scarce. Current study is a conceptual paper that aims to fill this gap through evaluating recent halal hospitality developments in Alanya, Turkey. In this paper, first the author distinguishes between Islamic tourism and halal tourism terms which emerge from the relationship between Islam and tourism and then evaluates recent halal hospitality developments in Alanya. It is stated that factors that motive individuals to travel may present clues to distinguish these terms. Showing parallelism with the increasing number of Muslim tourists in Turkey, the number of halal hotels in the destination has increased. Many conservative hotel companies recently have changed their concept to Islamic to respond halal tourism market. It is also stated many halal hotels operating in Alanya has no halal certification which is possibly result of lacking official unit to do.

Model to Determine the Perceived Risks of Tourists Staying at Hotels Where the Halal Tourism Concept Is Present: Antalya Region Example

“…Halal hotels, which are a sub-segment of halal tourism, offer facilities to tourists from all over the world in compliance with the religion of Islam (Chanin et al, 2015, p. 792;Küçüktopuzlu et al, 2019, p. 6). In the literature, despite the absence of internationally valid and universally accepted halal certification standards regarding which basic attributes halal hotels include, the attributes can be listed as follows: no alcohol, pork or derivatives, halal food only, suitable TV channels, a prayer room, prayer rugs and a Quran, separate gyms and swimming pools for men and women, and suitable toilets (Yağmur and Aksu, 2020a;Boğan, 2020). However, El-Gohary (2016) stated that all of these needs will not be considered by all Muslims as having the same importance.…”

A bibliometric analysis of Halal and Islamic tourism

“…The tourist sector is widely recognized as one of the most important drivers of economic growth, with Halal and Islamic tourism emerging as a new tourism business idea throughout the world (Prayag, 2020). Traveling is accomplished in Islam to appreciate Allah's grandeur and glorify Allah (Bo gan, 2020). The practice of Muslims traveling throughout the Islamic world has a strong tradition (Henderson, 2009).…”

Muslims’ travel decision-making to non-Islamic destinations: perspectives from information-seeking models and theory of planned behavior

“…Islam has a substantial impact on the attitudes and behavior of the daily life of Muslims, even in their leisure activities when traveling, they must respect obligations established in the Shari'ah law (Bo gan and Sarııs ık, 2019; Razak et al, 2020). Thus, Muslim travelers will be affected when traveling to non-Islamic destinations based on their Islamic respective beliefs (Bo gan, 2020). Akbar (2020) argues that Muslims should comply with Islamic teachings in every facet of their daily life activities such as food selection and consumption, business activities and travel decisions.…”