Discounts at designated Muslim-friendly restaurants and major tourist attractions will be offered to foreign visitors as part of the 60-day promotional event from August 16 to October 14.
Korea Tourism Organization’s (KTO) Halal Restaurant Week will be returning in August for a third edition, with more partners on board as the country ramps up efforts to increase beyond the nearly one million Muslim travellers that currently visit the country.
Discounts at designated Muslim-friendly restaurants and major tourist attractions will be offered to foreign visitors as part of the 60-day promotional event from August 16 to October 14.
This year will see a total of 147 partners participating, an increase of 27 from last year. Of this, 123 are Muslim-friendly restaurants and 24 are major tourist attractions.
Coupon books, which include 3,000KRW (US$2.68) and 10,000KRW (US$8.94) discounts, will be distributed to travellers through KTO’s major overseas branches in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi, Dubai, Istanbul and Almaty. Coupons can also be downloaded from the official webpage at http://www.hrwkorea.or.kr/.
This year’s event will also see more than 30 Muslim-friendly restaurants serving special menus, which visitors can redeem with the 10,000KRW coupon.
KTO will also be hosting the 2018 Halal Food Festival, the kick-off event of the Halal Restaurant Week Korea, at Hall A in COEX in Gangnam-gu District, Seoul. The event will run for three days from August 16 to 18, offering visitors Muslim chefs' special cooking demonstrations and classes on making Korean-halal fusion food.
The Halal Trade Expo Korea, a halal industry trade exhibition, will also be running concurrently.
Efforts to promote Muslim-friendly travel come amid predictions of strong growth in the Muslim tourist market to US$300 billion by 2026, according to the 2018 Global Muslim Travel Index.