The foreword to the Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2023 report by Fazal Bahardeen, CEO, CrescentRating & HalalTrip.
“Gen Zs will lead the narrative of the next phase of the development of Halal travel and will play a crucial role in championing sustainability initiatives.”
As we prepare to move beyond the recovery phase, Travel & Tourism sector is looking towards building a more resilient and sustainable future. The pandemic experience has hugely raised awareness of the crucial role that tourism needs to play in protecting the environment, ensuring community inclusivity, and economic equity at every level of the tourism value chain.
In recent years, Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, has taken center stage in the discussions of future travel. Muslim Gen Zs represent 27.2% of the global Muslim population. They are actively redefining what it means to travel. They will lead the narrative of the next phase of the development of Halal travel and will play a crucial role in championing sustainability initiatives.
In the Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) 2022 report, we identified Gen Z, Millennials, and Women as the most influential and growing demographic within the Muslim population. The earlier Mastercard-Crescentrating reports covered Muslim Millennials and Muslim Women Travelers. As such, in this 24th report in the Mastercard-CrescentRating Muslim Lifestyle market reports series, we take a deep dive into the behavior and preferences of Muslim Gen Z travelers.
The 4As framework; Affordability, Authenticity, Accessibility, and Adaptability captures Gen Z Muslim travelers’ spirit, principles, and motivation behind their trips. As for their support for sustainable practices, three emerging characteristics encapsulate their activism: They are becoming Intentional Spenders, Environment Enthusiasts, and Social Activists.
They are young travelers with limited spending power. However, they have discretionary money to spend on travel, regardless of whether they get it from their own means or family. Further, as most of them are beginning to enter the workforce, they are getting independent, and travel is a priority and an essential element in their lives.
International Muslim traveler arrivals reached 160 million in 2019. We estimate that around 37 million of them were Gen Zs. As we project Muslim traveler arrivals to return to the 2019 level in 2024, the impact of Gen Z will be more profound. As such, we trust this report’s data, and insights will help all travel and tourism stakeholders prepare for these young explorers as they embrace sustainability in their future travels. With our long-standing partner Mastercard, we will continue to enable the next phase of travel industry growth while supporting the protection of the environment, ensuring community inclusivity and economic equity at all levels.
Visit this link to download the full Muslim Gen Z Report!
