**1. Introduction**

The knowledge of Muslim tourist behaviour in the context of Halal tourism is pertinent to industry players, marketers, and policy makers alike in developing Halal tourism infrastructure and facilities, Halal travel packages and Halal travel activities. It will also help them design specific messages for marketing communication in order to attract Muslim tourists. Although the past or future Muslim populations size in the world does not reveal to what extent this population actively practises its faiths or how religious its members are or will be [1], Muslim customers are one of the fastest developing market segments, and its needs cannot be ignored by destination marketers and tourism operators [2–4]. According to the State of the Global Islamic Economy report [5], produced by Thomson Reuters in collaboration with DinarStandard, the global Muslim travel market was worth \$140 billion in 2013, which represents 11.5% of global expenditure. The same report predicts that the segment is expected to be worth \$238 billion in 2019 and represent 13% of global expenditure. **Figure 1** shows that

**Figure 1.** Global Muslim market. Source: State of the global Islamic economy 2014–2015 [5].

Malaysia, the UAE and Singapore lead the Halal Travel Indicator that focuses on the health of the family-friendly/Halal travel ecosystem a country has relative to its size.

There is now a growing interest in Halal tourism from the perspectives of both industry and academic research. Many stress the fact that any strategy to develop or market Halal tourism products and services must be guided by Islamic teachings and principles in all their aspects [3, 6, 7]. There are several terms that define the concept of Halal tourism and provide a suggested guideline to help clarify the matter. Building on this foundation, this chapter proposes that there exist differences in the meaning of the terms 'Halal', 'Islamic' and 'Muslim-friendly' in the context of tourism. It is hoped that a clearer understanding of the above terms will address the concern among many researchers and marketers regarding Muslim traveller behaviour in Halal tourism.
