SESRIC awarded grant by COMCEC
Date: 27 March 2017
Venue: Ankara - Türkiye

SESRIC is among a handful of institutions and government ministries that have been awarded grant by The Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) Coordination Office to implement a training project on the “Development and Promotion of Muslim Friendly Tourism (MFT)”. The project is targeting countries that have little or no development in the area of Islamic tourism.

Recently, Islamic tourism has come under growing attention due to, partly, years of subpar growth in the conventional and mainstream tourism following the global financial meltdown of 2008. This challenging time of uncertainty has strengthened both the need and the call to diversify the economies and boost sectors like Islamic tourism. The astonishing accomplishment of countries like UAE and Malaysia has shown that Islamic tourism, if properly utilized, has phenomenal potentials to set in motion a rapid and sustained economic prosperity.

The project aimed at transferring the cutting-edge experience and expertise of major Islamic tourism destinations like Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey to the less advanced countries in the areas of policies, marketing and infrastructure of Islamic tourism. The implementation aspect of the project consist of two major components: a training program and a site visit to one of MFT implementations and friendly area. The beneficiary of the training program which will be conducted by Islamic tourism experts from the top-rated Islamic Tourism Centre of Malaysia will be drawn mainly from countries with low capacities with respect to appropriate MFT policies, regulations, standards and marketing strategies.