Islamic branding as communication strategy of halal tourism promotion in non-Muslim country

Abstract

Muslims have specific products and services preference that affected by their syariah-based needs. In the tourism sector, the growth of Muslim tourists continues to increase and projected to continue to grow. South Korea sees this as an opportunity and try to engage an Islamic branding campaign with Muslim Friendly Korea as a campaign to promote the country's tourism. The purpose of this study is to find out how South Korean government builds a tourism brand with the concept of halal tourism to attract large Muslim market through food products in South Korea. Given South Korea has been worldwide known by the entertainment industry or Korean pop culture that has been worldwide. As well as typical South Korean food that uses lots of pork and alcoholic beverages where it is forbidden to Muslims. This research uses qualitative approach, with document analysis method. The literature review as the data analyzed is obtained from the official website of the South Korean tourism organization, articles, books, journals and videos. Results of this study indicate that South Korean government, through the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) do some ways to build a Muslim friendly tourism in South Korea through food products. Such as, provide official site of South Korean tourism that has information about culinary with halal label. KTO also organizes an event, named halal Restaurant Week. Besides that, a mobile phone application was also made to facilitate Muslim travelers who wants to find information about halal restaurant, barcode scanning food products to indicate halal food products and direction for worship place and schedule.

Keywords: Islamic branding; Korean tourism; Muslim tourists; communication promotion