Watch the speech delivered by the Chief Executive Officer of CrescentRating and HalalTrip - Fazal Bahardeen - at the launch of the MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2016.

The launch took place at the Pullman Hotel Jakarta on the 23rd March 2016, with Pak Arief Yahya - Minister of Tourism of Republic of Indonesia - being the Guest of Honour.

Mr. Bahardeen stated in his speech that over the last year, the Global Muslim Travel Index has become a premium resource for governments, tourist boards and other travel and hospitality services to help them realign strategies in order to attract the Muslim travel market. Additionally, he stated that investors and travelers have also been using the Index to gain access to comprehensive research, as well as to track the health and growth of the travel segment and benchmark the progress of a destination in terms of Muslim-friendly travel.

He also spoke about the Index in 2015 which started off with 100 destinations - 29 OIC destinations and 71 non-OIC destinations. A comparison of last year's index with this year showed how GMTI 2016 had expanded to include more destinations as well as more criteria in order to cater to the continuously-evolving industry.

In his speech he stated that the total number of Muslim travelers worldwide has been increasing rapidly over the last few years - with the number of Muslim visitors being amounted to a total of 25 million in 2000, 98 million in 2010, 117 million in 2015 and an estimated 168 million Muslim visitors in 2020. Region demographics in 2015 showed that around 56.6% of Muslim travelers headed to Asia, 29.7% to Europe, 8.8% to the Americas, 4.3% to Africa and 0.5% to Oceania.

He went on to announce the rankings and results for 2016, while comparing them with the results of the previous year. Indonesia was noted as the destination with the highest increase in rankings amongst the top 10 destinations and it was noted that many Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan and Sri Lanka have been making immense progress in catering to the Muslim market by upgrading facilities and services. The average overall score for the Index in 2016 was also compared with that of the previous year to show the progress of the market over the last year.

For a full analysis and to access the complete Global Muslim Travel Index 2016, please visit:https://www.crescentrating.com/mastercard-crescentrating-global-muslim-travel-index-gmti-2016.html