Europe: Prospects of Sharia hotels

Tourism in the Middle East is a market currently waking up.  Abdulla Almulla estimates for Global Travel Industry News that Islamic hotel products will soon make up 10% of the world market.  Almulla heads the Almulla Hospitality Sharia hotel chain, which intends to build 150 new Sharia hotels in the next five years, forty of which are planned in  Europe.

The new hotels will not serve alcohol or pork products, and will have separate swimming pools, as well as prayer areas.

Mohmood Al Koffi, of the REEF investment firm in Dubai, says that just like there are people who don't like hte smell of tobocco, there are those who don't like the smell of alcohol.  "Most hotels in the Middle East show the direction to Mecca, and European hotels are begining to do the same. When the Mariott hotels can have bibles in the room, Muslim hotels also have a Koran."  He thinks the sharia hotel market has a future, also in Europe.

Steward Jack of the British investment consulting company Jasper Capital is chief consultant for the Almulla Hospitality Sharia hotel chain. 

He explains that the new hotels will be built on Sharia principles.  For example, beds and toilets won't face Mecca.  The art on the walls won't show human bodies.  He sees these hotels as addressing travelers who want peace and quiet, without drunks and evening entertainment.

He also says that the hijab debate doesn't concern them, since they think it's mostly in the European schools, and does not prevent Muslims to travel there.

He says that they're especially looking at cities like Paris and London because most Muslim tourists come there.  Regarding Scandinavia he says that they're keeping watch on those countries and as soon as they think there will be  market for it, they will also establish themselves there.

Danish interest organization for the hotel and restaurant field, Horesta, have not been approached by anybody wanting to build a sharia-hotel in Denmark.

However, should there be such interest, Allan Agerholm, board-member, says that they'll be welcome.  He would just suggest to them not to call it a Sharia hotel since that would give the wrong association.

Source: Information (Danish), Zawya (English)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Also, if you believe that world is round, then all toilets and beds face Mecca. Just saying.

bestonline323 said...

despite the placard-wielding, political rhetoric and isolated concessions, the prospects of Shariah law usurping current legal systems -- even a more modest Shariah system than that applied in the Middle East -- appear more remote than ever in Southeast Asia.

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While some conservative Muslims believe Shariah law could eradicate corruption, drug use and family breakdowns, there is still only minimal support for it, even in a country in which some 85 percent of the 210 million people are Muslim.

And among those in the world's largest Muslim country who support a return to Shariah law for the first time in half a century, few Indonesians favor the drastic measures carried out in parts of the Middle East, such as the amputation of thieves' limbs.

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Unknown said...

The United Arab Emirates-based hotel management company Landmark Hotel Management LLC plans to launch ten Shariah compliant hotels and serviced apartments in the UAE and Saudi Arabia by the end of 2010, WAM news agency reported Wednesday. The move would cater to the increasing demand for Shariah-compliant hotels in the Middle East.Six of the planned hotels would be launched in Dubai, two in Abu Dhabi and one each in in Fujairah and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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Joachim Martillo said...

Halakhah-observant hotels and bread-and-breakfasts have long functioned within the Orthodox Jewish community.

I have stayed at a few, which were okay, but sharia hotels could probably offer better services simply because they are working with a much larger market.

jetabler shows exactly the same mentality that late 19th century anti-Semites demonstrated.

One could easily imagine an anti-Jewish racist at the time period accusing a Halakhah hotel of sacrificing a Christian child for passover matzah and offering morning desecration of the host, opportunities for spitting on priests throughout the day, loansharking non-Jews in the afternoon, and the raping of non-Jewish virgins kidnapped into white-slavery in the evening.

BTW, it would be fairly easy to create a hotel that was both halakhah and sharia observant.

tanyaa said...

Dubai-based hospitality group Almulla, today launched the world's first Sharia. Shariah-compliant hotels are mushrooming throughout the Middle East and elsewhere, boosted by an increase in the number of Arab tourists.
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