Indonesia is a country with great potential for the development of Muslim halal tourism. The high Muslim population is one of the resources that can give Indonesia the opportunity to become the best Muslim-friendly tourist in the world. One of the efforts made by LPPOM to support the government in increasing halal tourism is through a halal certification facilitation program for MSMEs in Super Priority Regions (DSP).
In the global arena, halal tourism is a promising market. This can be seen from the Mastercard Crescentrating Global Travel Market Index (GMTI) 2023 Report, which predicts that there will be 280 million Muslim tourists globally in 2028 with a spending value of 225 billion US dollars.
Now, the Muslim-friendly tourism market in Indonesia has entered the global market. Therefore, the development of halal tourism services and Muslim-friendly tourism must be carried out to encourage Indonesia’s opportunities to lead in the development of Muslim-friendly tourism in the world. The world has recognized Indonesia’s prospects in developing Muslim-friendly tourism. This is not without reason, considering that Indonesia has won many awards in the realm of world halal tourism destinations.
For example, in 2023, Indonesia was ranked first, placing Indonesia in first place with Malaysia out of 138 global destinations as the best halal tourism in the world according to the Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI), outperforming other participants as the Top Muslim Friendly Destination of The Year 2023.
Indonesia has the opportunity to lead the world’s Muslim-friendly tourism market. Even so, several challenges need to be faced to achieve this goal. Halal Partnership and Audit Services Director of LPPOM, Dr. Ir. Muslich, M.Si, said that one of the challenges of halal certification so far is socialization to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) because it has not been a top priority.
“The challenges of halal certification that we have experienced so far, if large-scale businesses already have sufficient resources, while small ones such as MSMEs have limitations so that there are still many MSMEs that have not been halal certified. UMK itself is one of the challenges, because the majority of the largest food and beverage providers in Indonesia,” said Muslich.
He emphasized that as long as business actors are committed to carrying out halal certification, they will get a halal certificate, and business actors do not have to be Muslim because halal certification is universal. Another challenge that is usually faced by MSME actors, according to Muslich, is finding alternative ingredients that are guaranteed halal.
“Moreover, since the business was established, it was not regulated to have a halal certificate,” he said. However, Muslich asked entrepreneurs not to worry because LPPOM has a database that can help MSMEs find substitute ingredients that are halal certified.
Meanwhile, according to the Expert Staff for Business Development, Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf), Masruroh, S.Sos., MAB, the next challenge is the many competing countries, both Muslim countries and Muslim minority countries, which are competing to increase efforts in providing Muslim-friendly tourism.
“Awareness of consuming halal products is still relatively low. Therefore, efforts are needed to increase the provision of halal products for Muslim tourists by continuously socializing both directly and indirectly, so that many business actors carry out halal certification,” explained Masruroh.
In this case, he said that in developing Muslim-friendly tourism, Indonesia needs to make several innovations in increasing the application of technology that supports Muslim-friendly tourism and provides additional services, such as halal-certified food and beverage products and adequate prayer facilities at tourist attractions.
Now, there is no need to worry about traveling in Indonesia because there are already many Muslim-friendly tourist areas, including Muslim minority areas. You can also check out a series of other halal culinary tours through the website www.halalmui.org, the Halal MUI application, which can be downloaded on the Playstore, and the BPJPH website. Other services, such as swab tests for food handlers, can also be accessed on the LPPOM MUI Lab website https://e-halallab.com/. (ZUL)
