The global Muslim travel market surpassed 196M arrivals in 2025 and is on course for $310B in annual expenditure by 2030. CrescentRating gives tourism authorities the intelligence, standards, and activation platforms to lead in this market — not just participate in it.
We work across different departments within tourism boards — here is how we typically engage:
Assess your destination's readiness for Muslim-friendly travel, identify gaps, and build structured improvement plans with a clear path to implementation.
Source: Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2026
Muslim traveller demand concentrates around three distinct annual windows. The destinations that capture disproportionate share activate early — and across all three.
Ramadan concentrates global Muslim travel around spiritual journeys, family reunions, and Umrah-adjacent destinations. Planning begins well before the month itself — making it a high-intent, predictable demand window for destinations that prepare early.
→ Activate 8–12 weeks before Ramadan begins
Muslim travellers plan significantly further ahead of departure than the global average
Destination campaigns must be live well before each window opens to capture this demand
CrescentRating Destination Marketing & Activation delivers campaign-ready content, editorial placement, and destination microsites on HalalTrip — timed to each travel window.
Plan Your Annual StrategyDespite the scale of the Muslim travel market, the majority of national tourism boards capture only a fraction of their potential. Four compounding structural barriers explain why.
"Destinations that treat Muslim-friendly travel as a checkbox exercise rather than a strategic segment consistently underperform those that invest in intelligence-led, standards-backed approaches."
— CrescentRating Strategic Advisory
Most tourism boards lack reliable, destination-specific data on Muslim traveler profiles, spending patterns, unmet needs, and competitive benchmarks — making budget allocation and campaign design guesswork.
Without a globally recognized accreditation framework, destinations cannot credibly communicate readiness to Muslim travelers or differentiate from competing destinations claiming the same audience.
OIC-member destinations and emerging markets in Asia and Europe are accelerating Muslim-friendly infrastructure investment. The GMTI ranking determines which destinations attract the high-spending segment first.
Tourism ministry staff, hospitality operators, and service providers often lack the training and operational standards to consistently deliver Muslim-friendly experiences — undermining brand promises made abroad.
The Muslim Travel Intent Tracker is built from live survey data collected monthly across 15+ source markets — measuring near-term travel intent on a 0–100 scale, weighted by departure proximity.
A 0–100 index updated every month, weighted by traveler proximity to departure. A rising score means bookings are being made now — not just researched.
→Score trending upward ahead of Eid al-Adha and Summer Holiday
Which destinations Muslim travelers are actively naming as their intended next trip — broken down by month. Spot momentum early, before it shows in arrival data.
→Top 20 destination rankings updated monthly
What share of travelers are still researching vs. actively booking vs. already confirmed — segmented by travel timing horizon. Critical for campaign timing decisions.
→Booking intent data by source market available
Travel purpose (leisure, family, religious), travel frequency, and timing intent — so destination campaigns can speak to the right motivations at the right moment.
→Segmented by travel purpose and frequency
Every service is designed to interlock. Tourism boards that engage across the full suite build compounding competitive advantage — better data informs better strategy, which supports better standards, which powers better marketing.
Destination-specific profiling of Muslim traveler segments: demographics, psychographics, spending patterns, satisfaction drivers, and unmet needs. Provides the evidence base for all strategic and investment decisions.
→Actionable market intelligence reports and traveler persona frameworks
End-to-end strategy design for tourism boards entering or scaling in the Muslim travel segment: market entry analysis, competitive positioning, stakeholder alignment, and multi-year roadmap development.
→Board-ready strategy documents, investment prioritization frameworks
Advisory deployment of the globally standardized ACES framework — Access, Communication, Environment, Services — the same model that underpins the GMTI ranking and powers CrescentRating's destination benchmarking.
→GMTI readiness score, ACES gap analysis, improvement roadmap
Independent Crescent Rating accreditation for hotels, restaurants, airports, and attractions within your destination. Provides travelers with credible third-party verification of Muslim-friendly service readiness.
→Crescent Rating certification for destination-wide hospitality ecosystem
Structured certification and quality assurance for food service operators in your destination — restaurants, hotel dining, airport F&B, and catering. Converts a persistent traveler pain point into a destination trust signal.
→Halal dining directory, operator certification, traveler-facing assurance mark
A structured assessment of your destination against the RIDA framework — measuring performance across Responsible, Immersive, Digital, and Assured dimensions. Produces a RIDA Impact Score (RIS) that benchmarks your destination and identifies priority improvement areas.
→RIDA Impact Score, dimension-by-dimension gap analysis, improvement roadmap
Structured capability building for tourism ministry staff, DMO teams, hospitality operators, and frontline service providers. Curriculum covers Muslim travel fundamentals through to advanced destination management.
→Certified staff cohorts, operator compliance training, ministry capacity uplift
Tailored executive briefings and ministerial workshops covering market intelligence, GMTI standing, competitive positioning, and segment strategy — formatted for Tourism Ministers, DG-level officials, and DMO boards.
→Executive briefing decks, facilitated workshops, board-level strategy sessions
Integrated campaign design, content production, and channel partnerships that position your destination in front of Muslim travel decision-makers. Includes editorial, social, and event-based activation at Halal In Travel Global Summit.
→Multi-channel campaign execution, content partnership, summit presence
Not sure where to start?
Our destination strategy team will guide your board to the right engagement pathway.
Most tourism board engagements begin with a single question: where do we stand? Our pathway is designed to answer that question — and then systematically build the capabilities, standards, and visibility that transform the answer.
A confidential executive session for Tourism Ministry or DMO leadership — covering your destination's current GMTI standing, competitive landscape, and the highest-ROI entry points.
Destination-specific Muslim traveler research: segment sizing, demand drivers, satisfaction gaps, and competitive benchmarking against comparable destinations in the GMTI.
Board-ready strategic plan with prioritized initiatives, investment cases, KPI framework, and a 3-year destination positioning roadmap aligned to GMTI improvement targets.
Rollout of Crescent Rating accreditation across the destination's hospitality ecosystem — hotels, restaurants, airports — supported by Halal Dining Assurance for F&B operators.
CR Academy training deployment across tourism ministry staff, DMO teams, and hospitality operators — building the internal capability to sustain Muslim-friendly service delivery.
Integrated destination marketing campaigns, RIDA platform listing, HalalTrip content partnership, and Halal In Travel Global Summit presence — turning readiness into arrivals.
Engagements are modular — tourism boards may enter at any step based on their current readiness and strategic priorities.
The destinations that will dominate the Muslim travel segment in 2030 are making their strategic investments now. CrescentRating gives your tourism board the intelligence, standards, and activation to be one of them.
A confidential 90-minute session with our destination strategy team — tailored to your board's current priorities and GMTI standing.
The Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index — the definitive report on 150 destinations and the trends shaping Muslim travel to 2030.
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