2018 was another successful year for HalalBooking.com, the leading online search and booking platform for halal-friendly travel.
Its latest filed company accounts show that in 2017 the company achieved a turnover of US$12 million, which is an increase of US$5 million in the previous year. Its net profit also rose to an impressive US$830,000 in the same year. It is set to record similar growth again in 2018.
CEO Elnur Seyidli said: “After a record 2017, 2018 has been another very successful year for HalalBooking.com. We have continued with our strategy of increasing the number of hotels on our site, which already comprises more than 1,150 properties in 45 countries. Our bookings in 2018 have almost doubled compared to 2017. We plan to submit our 2018 accounts soon and the figure is expected to rise to around US$21-22 million. In 2019 we forecast to double again to US$40 million and overall, we are on track to achieve our valuation target of US$1 billion in 2022.”
He continued: “We were delighted to be included for the first time on the Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100, which ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing sales. It recognized our 90% growth over the past three years and ranked us as the 26th fastest growing company in the UK.”
The newly released State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2018/19, produced by Thomson Reuters in collaboration with Dinar Standard, estimates the Muslim spend on travel worldwide in 2017 as US$177 billion. This is forecast to reach US$274 billion by 2023, making it one of the industry’s fastest-growing sectors.
Seyidli explained: “The difference between HalalBooking and our competitors in this market is that we are focused on a very sophisticated process of collecting and curating high-quality data. In order to succeed, it is necessary to have a deep level of granularity of the data regarding the halal-friendliness of the accommodation facilities and services. It is a much more difficult business model to execute but we believe it is the only right business model.
We know that our success depends upon continuing to develop new features, which is why we committed a spend of almost US$750,000 to research and development in 2017.”
Enver Cebi, COO said: “Currently, our strongest market is Europe and we are focused in the short-term on expanding further into GCC and North Africa before entering the Asia Pacific region. Turkey is an important destination for us, and we have again secured exclusive European marketing rights to its top halal-friendly resort hotels.
Ufuk Seçgin, CMO explained: “We are continuing to develop our halal-friendly content and filters further to make it very quick and simple for our customers to find halal-friendly properties worldwide. We will also launch our first app in 2019 and continue to expand our hotel portfolio.”
UK-based online search and booking platform, HalalBooking.com has over 300,000 customers across 84 countries and offers halal-friendly accommodation worldwide. Its biggest outbound markets are the UK and Germany. It allows its customers to filter hotel and villa accommodation by halal-friendly features such as availability of halal food, alcohol-free areas, dedicated women’s facilities such as spas and pools and family-friendly entertainment.
