Recently we’ve started our new blog series “Travel like a Muslim”. We’d like to share travel experience with the growing halaltrip community. Today we show you the first two passionate travelers who spent their holidays in Istanbul and Doha. Many thanks to Ateeq and Askia for sending us those beautiful pictures and even a great video of a dancing sufi in Istanbul. Enjoy!
Share your greatest trips and your biggest travel nightmares with the halaltrip community. So what are you waiting for? Grab your best pictures and/or videos and send it to travel@halaltrip.com!
Thanks to mobile technology travelling people are online whenever and wherever they want to be. Useful applications can be downloaded for a small fee or even for free. As Muslims we are often keen on specific services while travelling around the globe. Hence, we present you five apps for your iPhone (most of them are available for smartphones in general) that might be interesting.
1.) Google Apps: Yeah, this is not a “Muslim” app but it’s just incredible helpful. Google Maps show you where you are and where anything else is, Gmail keeps you updated on all of your messages, YouTube helps reducing time before boarding and Google Earth lets you explore your destination. Price: Free
2.) zabihah: Easy finding of Halal food and mosques near you including reviews to prevent surprises. Share your experience and upload media files to extend their platform. More than 10,000 listings around the world are waiting for you. Price: $0,99 USD
3.) tripcase: Travel smarter! This app shows you flight status, delays, cancellations while suggesting alternate flight routes. Price: Free
4.) jiwire: Saving costs while phoning or using the web abroad isn’t that easy due to high roaming fees. Just download jiwire and search for Wi-Fi hotspots near you. Price: Free
5.) Islamic Compass: Similar to Mecca Locator and thanks to iPhone 3GS technology finding Qibla and a calling Athan this app offers anything a praying Muslim is looking for. Price: $3,99 USD
As our community is growing from day to day – thanks to you all – we are about to start our new blog series called “Travel like a Muslim”. Send us your pictures and videos and we present your travel experience on our official blog. Share your greatest trips and your biggest travel nightmares with the halaltrip community. So what are you waiting for? Grab your best pictures and/or videos and send it to travel@halaltrip.com!
Almost four months old halaltrip is on the rise thanks to all of you. We’ve recently launched the French, Turkish and German version of our site and implemented a search filter option to easily find your perfect halal hotel. Right now we are working hard on the first ever Arabic halal hotel review site to reach out to an amazing growing market in die Middle East. Additionally we are planning to launch our travel community within the next months. Hence, we are looking for your feedback? What are you expecting? How can we improve our website? Please drop a comment, send us an Email or add your feedback on facebook. Out of all entries we will hold a prize draw for a halal travel package including a pocket prayer rug, a compass and a pocket Quran. So please provide us with your name, adress and e-mail if you’d like to participate in the draw* (Closing date: August 31st 2010).
Today we’d like to give you some thoughts on why we did start halaltrip. Apart from the worldwide economic crisis the so-called “Halal tourism” is on the rise. Based on various World Travel Market Reports (WTM) this special segment of traveling is still an untapped field not only for Middle and Far East but also for Western Europe and the US, where the Muslim population is constantly growing. World travel markets like Turkey, Malaysia, the Gulf region, Singapore or Indonesia show already strong interests in Halal facilities and accommodations.
So what does that mean?
Hotels are especially keen on getting Halal food certificates to attract the huge amount of Arab tourists. In 2005, 150.000 tourists traveled from Middle East to Malaysia, in 2007 almost 250.000 people. Another example would be Dubai, where several Hotel groups announced the development of hotel chains complying with Islamic law. But there is also a growing number of Muslims, who are looking for ladies-only swimming pools and wellness activities, prayer facilities and a range of Halal food.
Further, Muslim travelers want to know as well if the hotel properties serve alcohol. Indeed, traveling and Web-based services are nowadays very closely related. Actually, one might say there is a ‘Travel-Web-Nexus’. In 2009 the online spending on leisure travel increased to $110 billion, which means that more than a third of online users are visiting travel-rating sites. And another 80% are regularly reading travel sites. Global Players like TripAdvisor, Zoover and YahooTravel are just the peak of a huge variety of rating sites. Despite that, there is still a (huge) niche market targeting a Muslim audience, who is keen on traveling within a Halal environment.
Muslims around the globe are keen on their most precious trip in their life. The Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia that is a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in a lifetime. Millions of believers are travelling to the Holy Kaaba each year to perform this unique experience. If you do consider a Hajj within the next few years just have a look at HajjRatings.com. The website offers unbiased ratings of travel agents, companies and groups from pilgrims around the world. So you can easily find out what others have said about your potential travel agency or make a difference by sharing your thoughts and opinion upon your return from Hajj or Umrah. And what about a check-list reminding you what you should not forget on this great journey? HajjRatings.com is made up of a small team of volunteers and independent from any travel business. It does also offer background information via some articles and even an online donation system to get your qurbani slaughtered for the next Eid ul-Adha.
Nowadays Muslims don’t have any troubles finding ‘Halal’ services on the web. Whether you are looking for a restaurant at zabihah, a mosque or other prayer facilities at salatomatic, body care at Hussana, apps for your iPhone at elan magazine, fresh music from Yusuf Islam or Mos Def or even a spouse at naseeb or qiran. Well, halaltrip is just another service providing information on a common and loved aspect of life. It is great to see Muslims around the globe enjoying life within Islamic environment and having fun at the same time. Yeah, this is possible! And don’t forget for your next Eid celebrations to check out this wonderful Butter-Basted Roast Chicken at my halal kitchen.
halaltrip just recently launched to public and some bloggers and journalists are already covering our new project. Take a look at the first articles on our muslim-friendly hotel review site:
We have worked really hard over the last 6 months on http://www.halaltrip.com but finally launched to public a couple days ago. Users can now easily rate hotels around the world helping to create the most transparent travel source for Muslims. Each hotel profile includes information about serving alcohol and Halal Food, the availability of ladies-only facilities like pools or prayer facilities. Some personal thoughts…
Summer 2009 – The idea of halaltrip came to my mind. Islamic Finance was still on everybody’s mind even during the world financial crisis. Muslims were setting up all over the globe so called Web 2.0 projects and internet penetration was growing dramatically in Muslim majority countries.
As I am a passionate traveler, I am using services like TripAdvisor or Booking.com to check reviews of hotels. So I thought where is all the information for Muslim-friendly hotels all over the globe. More than 1.5 billion people aren’t a niche to ignore, aren’t they?
Many nights later, after researching and drinking more than one cup of hot tea, I discovered that there are only just a few websites, which mainly target Muslim travelers.
A couple of weeks and thoughts later, I created some design proposals, purchased the domain and started to research for Muslim-friendly hotels worldwide. Right now I am just happy with launching the project to the public hoping to be a big success insha’Allah. Besides offering Muslims a transparent travel guide for their next stay, halaltrip also aims to make hotel owners and management staff aware of halal tourism and its potential.
If you still have any questions or just want to give some feedback don’t hesitate to drop a comment below!
