Muslim tourism sector said to be worth over $138 billion

The Muslim tourism sector is booming, and according to a new study, the GDP impact of the world’s Muslim tourism sector exceeded US $138 billion in 2011, generating around 4.3 million jobs and contributing more than $18 billion in tax revenue.

The Salam Standard report went on to add that the US and the EU were the top beneficiaries of Muslim travel spending, garnering nearly $64 billion of inbound expenditure in 2011.

“To put this into perspective, a GDP impact of $138 billion is larger than the entire economy of Morocco or Kuwait,” said the report’s author, Salam Standard CEO Faeez Fadhlillah.

The report also studied the contribution of the Muslim tourism sector to major world economies in detail and concluded that the US and the EU collected the most Muslim tourist-related tax - amounting to $12.5 billion.