The Routledge Handbook of Halal Hospitality and Islamic Tourism by C. Michael Hall;Girish Prayag;

Author:C. Michael Hall;Girish Prayag;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2020-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

The Muslim-friendly option

This research focuses on two leading Tunisian destinations, Djerba and Nabeul–Hammamet, which together account for 33 per cent of hotels and over 40 per cent of tourist accommodation capacity across the nation. Djerba is the largest island of North Africa (514 km2) and, since the 1960s, has been one of the most popular Tunisian destinations for mass coastal tourism. The eastern coast hosts almost all of Djerba’s tourism infrastructure. Data on the island show the same trends towards stagnation and decline observable at the national level, for the same reasons mentioned earlier and due to the 2002 bomb attack on the El Ghriba Synagogue. Before the 2011 crisis, European tourists accounted for over 87 per cent of the 980,000 hotel arrivals, while Libyans, who represented the largest portion of non-European visitors, made up only 4.5 per cent (ONTT 2011). With respect to the present research questions, it is important to note that Jewish pilgrimages and related heritage attractions are consolidated tourism products in Djerba. Strategies for bridging the Jewish minority with Tunisia’s tourism, heritage, contemporary history, and national identity building are well observable, such as the Ghriba Synagogue pilgrimage. This pilgrimage and the related festival are top tourist attractions and icons of Tunisian religious tolerance (Carboni et al. 2014; Perelli & Sistu 2013; Boussetta 2018).

The Cap Bon Peninsula hosts the Nabeul–Hammamet area, an almost entirely urbanised coastline that is one of the leading tourist destinations in the country. Like everywhere else in the country, the fall of Ben Ali’s regime affected Cap Bon: tourist overnight stays decreased from 9.4 million in 2010 to 6.1 million in 2013. Hotel customers are traditionally Europeans, with Algerians and Libyans accounting for less than 5 per cent of total hotel stays.

The present research expands upon two previous studies by Carboni et al. (2014, 2017) conducted in the Djerba and Nabeul–Hammamet areas, applying the same methodology. As such, the present research is based on a qualitative research method that incorporates the consultation of secondary sources and interviews. The primary data (semi-structured interviews) were collected between 2012 and 2017 from 34 men and 13 women across several ages. The interviewees included tourism professionals, non-profit organisation representatives, local administrators, owners of tourist accommodation facilities, local and national tourism-related agencies, and local academics.

The interview structures were the same for both areas. The first section started with the interviewees’ opinions about the current state of the destination’s tourism sector. The focus then shifted to the relationship between the local population and tourists, with some questions about the impact of tourist presence. Finally, the rising interest in Muslim-friendly tourism was investigated via individual opinions and knowledge of the phenomenon’s main characteristics, including questions concerned with the interviewees’ opinions on the potential of halal tourism for the Tunisian market. The presentation of the results follows the same structure of the interview questions.

Security issues emerged as one of the main themes, mainly related to the 2011 events. According to several interviewees, European and Gulf State mass media overemphasised the security

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