Travel And Resort

Korea will begin to look kosher as one tourist attraction in the country. Not only introduce Korean culture to the Muslim tourists but also offers a variety of halal food delicious Korean-paced. Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law.

Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has offered to approximately 40 Korean travel agents about tours kosher. Program includes a lecture tour guide halal Islamic culture and introducing halal food lunchbox to attract more Muslim tourists to Korea.

The Hee-Soo Lee, professor of Hanyang University gave a lecture how the Muslims in the Middle East and Southeast Asia to develop their religious tradition in food culture and lifestyle. For example the Muslims only eat meat that has been slaughtered in Islamic way, etc.

“By following this program I became aware that I was so inexperienced about Islamic cultures, but so far I have developed a tour program for Muslim tourists,” said Annie Yu, director of one of the tour agencies in Korea which has made tour programs for tourists from Eastern countries Central, including Iran, UAE, and Oman.

According to Annie one of the biggest impediments to attract Muslim tourists to come is the existence of strict rules in the food and worship. Not easy to prepare kosher food in the country and ensure non-Muslim tourists can perform worship five times a day.

“We admit that kosher restaurants are very rare here even almost non-existent outside of Seoul, Busan, and Jeju. So we brought the Muslim tourists to seafood restaurants, Indian and Pakistani restaurants, or a vegetarian restaurant,” said Bob Lee, manager and guide from Seles Jacky Travel Service.

To anticipate the problems of food, lunchbox KTO sample introduces halal food. “This is a ‘Halal Food a la Korea.” Korean Restaurants usually do not offer halal meat, so that’s not easy for visitors to taste foods like Bulgogi Muslims, who they know from movies or dramas. “So lunchbox is designed specifically to meet the needs of Muslim tourists as well to introduce Korean food to them, said Sung Joo-hee as the KTO Manager.

Travel agents usually ask for kosher restaurants to make room for Muslim tourists to worship. He also said only a few destinations that provide worship space including Everland and Nami Island.

KTO today open a place of worship for Muslims at the Tourism Information Center, the headquarters of their office. So the Muslim tourists can also worship there. “We believe that the tourist market which is around 1.3 billion Muslims is a potential market. We hope the lectures and courses that we offer will help attract more Muslim tourists

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