Mobile app seeks to help "Halal tourists"

posted on: Apr 26, 2015

A new mobile app will help Muslim travellers establish prayer times, locate mosques and find halal food more easily while away from home.

Going by the name HalalTrip, the app has integrated the latest available technologies to give Muslim travellers a simple way to find prayer times and locations whether on air, land or sea.

With just one click, the new feature instantly calculates the prayer times for the current location, the distances for nearby mosques and the time it will take to reach them. For travellers it will also work out whether you can reach your hotel in time for prayers.

The addition of this feature alongside its existing in-flight prayer calculator means the HalalTrip app now provides Muslim travellers with a seamless experience for all their needs.

Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of HalalTrip & CrescentRating, said embracing new technology to innovate and enhance the experience of Muslim travellers is a key ongoing focus for the company as the $145 billion Halal tourism sector becomes more sophisticated and smartphone savvy.

Bahardeen said, “The Muslim traveller is now much more technology savvy than ever before. They are increasingly coming from a younger demographic and are now some of the early adopters of online innovations.”

The HalalTrip app brings together a number of key essential travel resources for Muslims which includes Halal food discovery. The Halal food spotting feature allows users to “spot” Halal food dishes and upload images, comment and share via social media to millions across the world.

The new version of the app, available on both iOS and Android, now has English, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia user interfaces with more languages to follow.

According to the latest figures in the “MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) 2015”, the halal tourism sector was worth $145 billion in 2014. This figure is predicted to grow to $200 billion by 2020.

Over the next few months, HalalTrip will add new features to the app including a direct booking service and city guides.

The free app is available for both iPhone/iPad & Android smartphones/tablets and can be downloaded by searching for ‘HalalTrip’ in the App Store/Google Play.

Source: muslimvillage.com