South Africa has been ranked fourth among the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) destinations in the MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) 2015.

South Africa follows Singapore, Thailand and the UK, and was ranked 30th in the overall GMTI.

Malaysia came first for the OIC destinations, which also saw Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar make the top five.

The GMTI looks at in-depth data covering 100 destinations, creating an overall index, based on a number of criteria. This is the first time such thorough insights have been provided into one of the fastest-growing tourism sectors in the world today.

It will provide travellers, governments, travel services and investors comprehensive benchmarks across a number of important criteria enabling them to track the health and growth of this travel segment.

The study also revealed that in 2014, this segment was worth $145-billion with 108-million Muslim travellers representing 10% of the entire travel economy. South Africa saw 593 000 Muslim visitors in that period, accounting for 6% of the total arrivals to the destination.

The Muslim travel market is forecast to grow to 150-million visitors by 2020 and 11% of the entire segment with a value projected to grow to $200-billion.

“The MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index has set a real precedent for the tourism industry,” says Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of CrescentRating and HalalTrip. “Not only is it the most in-depth research that we have undertaken so far on the fast-growing Muslim travel market, but has provided all stakeholders with some invaluable insight into how the halal-friendly tourism sector is growing and developing from a global perspective.”

“We are pleased to partner with CrescentRating to develop the Global Muslim Travel Index as we see it as an extension of our efforts in giving consumers peace of mind when travelling, through our seamless payment solutions. Travel continues to be a core passion for consumers and we are confident the Index will prove to be a trusted resource for this important, fast-growing traveller segment,” says Matthew Driver, president: Southeast Asia at MasterCard.

All 100 destinations in the GMTI were scored against a backdrop of criteria which included suitability as a family holiday destination, the level of services and facilities it provides, accommodation options, marketing initiatives as well as visitor arrivals. Each criterion was then weighted to make up the overall index score.

Among the non-OIC destinations Singapore scored the highest Index score of 65.1 followed by Thailand at 59.2 with South Africa scoring 51.1.

GMTI40, which will be updated quarterly around the year, will track the average score of the top 20 OIC and non-OIC destinations and will form the key index to monitor the performance of the Muslim travel segment.

The overall average score for 40 destinations (GMTI40) currently stands at 56 while the overall average GMTI score for the complete 100 destinations is at 43.8. From a regional perspective, Asia Pacific destinations lead with an average GMTI score of 54.