After diplomatic spats with China, Japan and South Korea turned towards courting Muslim travellers Hong Kong’s array of halal food allows some of its most famous dishes to be enjoyed while sticking to Islamic principles
Along with an influx of travellers from Southeast Asia, more Muslims are visiting Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea than ever before.
The latter two have seen efforts to attract the Muslim travel market pay off, while Hong Kong has seen its halal food scene booming as more than 2.5 million travellers visited the city from South and Southeast Asia in the first nine months of the year.
In 2017, Japan welcomed nearly 1.2 million visitors from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. That figure was about as many as it received from the United States, and over a hundred times more than it received from the Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Meanwhile, roughly half a million travellers from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore visited Korea in the first nine months of this year, with the number of Malaysian visitors to Korea growing 40 per cent from last year.
Online marketing, low-cost air travel, and a wave of interest in Japanese and Korean pop culture have all played a part in this new-found popularity. Both Japan and Korea began courting the Muslim travel market after diplomatic spats with China – the source of 70 per cent of the two countries’ tourists. These efforts are paying off, and the two northeast Asian nations now top online lists of Muslim-friendly destinations in Asia.
