Abstract:

In the past two decades, the behaviours and profile of Muslim tourists have changed. Destinations with high service quality that cater to their specific requirements are increasingly preferred by this group of tourists. Furthermore, Muslim tourists prioritise destinations that are safe for them. Malesia, Dubai, Turkey and other few destinations have managed to benefit from this trend by providing accommodation, facilities, and services that respond to Muslim tourists’ requirements. However, the attempts of Turkey towards the Muslim Friendly Tourism market has their successes and failures. This study’s primary aim is to outline these success and failures about Turkey’s strive for becoming an Islamic Tourism Centre. In such context, strengths and weaknesses of Turkey in terms of Muslim Friendly Tourism have been acquired from various international indexes and literature on the topic. Another object of this study is to determine the priority and order of importance of the factors of SWOT. For this purpose, Digitised SWOT (A’WOT) calculations upon the SWOT factors have been performed. According to the calculations, superiorities have been determined to have priority over other SWOT groups (weight 0,44). This is respectively followed by weaknesses (0,28), threats (0,19), opportunities (0,09). 

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