Salam and welcome. Today, we are going to discuss the topic of hospitality and Muslims. Islam is one of the most widely accepted and fastest growing religions in the world.

As of 2020, 24.90% of the world's population believe in it. That’s a lot of people with the potential for being holidaymakers or guests at your hotel some day.

As such, we would like to go over some ideas on how to make your hotel a more welcoming and accepting place for Muslim guests. We will highlight areas you can focus on to make the most impact.

1. Food Options

The topic of halal foods is one of the first ones that comes up when discussing Muslim guests. There are many misconceptions about what it might be, so let’s clear it up.

Simply put, halal is Arabic for ‘permissable’. It is a term used to denote foods that Muslims are permitted to eat, as per their religious beliefs. This encompasses a wide variety of foods so it might be easier to list what’s NOT halal than what is.

From a hospitality POV, sourcing halal suppliers in your local area is a good first step. Secondly, making sure that your chefs handle these foods in ways that don’t compromise its halal also helps. This should be researched.

Offering the option of halal foods goes a long way towards making Muslims feel welcome. After all, it is not uncommon for Muslims to settle for the vegetarian menu, simply because the halal compliance of what’s available to eat is questionable.

2. Offer Appropriate Spaces

There are some religious rules or cultural standards that are important to consider when dealing with Muslim guests. So, let’s go over a few of the more important ones.

The first thing to consider is that Islam asks for a certain amount of modesty from its followers, regardless of gender. This is both in terms of their own self-expression and also in how they perceive the self-expressions of others. From a hospitality POV, providing the option for a beach area with less skin exposed and more family-friendly could go over well.

Additionally, the consumption of alcohol is strictly forbidden. As such, consider offering options for the evening that are not bars, clubs, and other similar activities. The more broad your nightlife catalogue, the more options exist for your Muslim guests to enjoy themselves and make once in a lifetime memories at your hotel.

3. Facilitate Prayer and Other Forms of Worship

There are five daily mandatory prayers in Islam. There are several more optional prayers. Muslims are also encouraged to read the Quran, fast during Ramadan, give alms to the poor, and perform various other, similar acts.

One of the biggest ways you can make your Muslim guests fell welcome is by taking actions to make it easier for them to observe their prayers and rituals. It can be something simple such as setting a specific area to pray in, giving prayer time reminders to guests who ask, and finding a way to conduct Friday prayers appropriately.

Another area you could concentrate on is Ramadan. Muslims eat one meal just before sunrise and spend the whole day fasting, only to break their fast at sunset. Helping facilitate this through meals prepared at the appropriate times could be a great boon to any Muslim guest staying with you.

4. Offer Multilingual Support

As we mentioned before, Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. As such, it is not uncommon to find Muslims hailing from many different countries from around the globe. The idea that Islam is only important in the Middle East is incorrect. The largest Muslim population can be found in Indonesia, for instance.

With this information in mind, it is clear that in order to attract more Muslim guests to your hotel and to attend to their needs well, you are going to need to have staff and facilities that can handle more than one language. Thus, multilingual support.

We’ve spoken about the importance of multilingual support many times on this blog itself, but the basic gist of it is that it allows you to welcome more types of guests from more places and they leave happier with your hotel than if you merely expected them to conform to English or another non-native language.

Adding multilingual support can be as simple as updating a menu to as complex as updating all the information on your website. However, it is definitely worth it due to the high amount of customer satisfaction it can result in.

And there you have it. Our tips on how to make mulsim guests feel more welcome at your hotel. This article was inspired by the fact that it was Eid Al Fitr recently, which is a widely celebrated and joyous occasion for Muslims around the world.

Putting in the effort to make your Muslim guests feel welcome and accepted is both morally and financially the right move.

While on the topic, if you wanted an easier way to integrate multilingual support to your hotel, why not consider TripKit?

TripKit is our easy-to-learn, easy-to-use, highly customizable digital concierge app. It is chock full of features to make your staffs’ jobs easier and your guests’ experience more pleasant. One of the more relevant features to this article is its multilingual support.

If you decide to use TripKit to display your hotel and its offers (fully customizable as per your brand requirements), your guests can choose what language with which to view this information. We support most major languages.

We invite smaller hotels to try the default version of TripKit at an affordable price, while larger hotels have the options of getting a white label version of the app, which they can customize to their liking.

If this interests you, why not take some time to visit our website and learn more.