이슬람 관광시장 확대에 따른 우리 관광산업 발전방안에 관한 연구

The Study on The Tourism Industry Development Plan in Accordance with the Islamic Tourism Market Growth

Religion has deeply influenced customers characteristics and religion has been an important motivation for traveling for a long time. Religions have prohibitions and obligations for the people who follow them, and some religions requires actions: Religion is related to social values, attitudes and cultural developments. The Islamic tourism market has a large growth potential. The Muslim population reaches up to 23% of the world population (1.57 billion); this literally means that 1 out of 4 people are Muslim. Also, Muslim countries have a high birth rate. These young people are becoming more educated and socially advanced which leads to growing expenditure of tourism. For this reason, competing countries are making various efforts to attract Muslim tourists. However, there were little studies conducted on Muslim tourism in South Korea, while the needs for diverse facilities including halal Korean restaurants are raised. Thus, this study will provide a direction in order to attract Mulsim tourists and what we need to make such efforts to develop Islamic tourism; which allows for a comfortable visiting South Korea from various Muslim countries as well as their return visits. The power of word-of-mouth among Muslim tourists will become an opportunity for South Korea to become a preferred country to tour.