Philippine Tourism is currently participating at the Riyadh Travel Fair in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with their valued travel and tourism partners to portray the many diverse offerings to the Middle Eastern travellers. Her Excellency Myra Paz Valderosa Abubakar, Undersecretary, Department of Tourism speaking with TravelTV Middle East shared the importance of the Middle Eastern markets and their focus on halal tourism. “Middle East market is a very important market for us and we are participating at the Riyadh Travel Fair as we are focusing on Muslim friendly travel from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the greater Middle East. Recently, in the Philippines we passed the Memorandum circular where in accommodation establishments could be Muslim friendly recognized so that they can get certificates so its very easy for our accommodation establishments in Philippines to be Muslim friendly recognized, we have 6 guidelines to follow and then 5 percent of the total number of rooms in an accommodation establishment in the Philippines should be Muslim friendly. So what do we mean by Muslim friendly, so each room will have the direction sticker (the kibla) that is very important, in our front desk, we encourage at least one Muslim employee to be able to greet our Muslim guests coming in and we have asked them to make available at the front desk a list of the prayer times as normally when you come from another country time changes so at least you have a copy of that so that you will be able to know what time to follow for prayer. Also, a list of masjids in the area or mosques so if they want to go for Friday prayers …
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