Reed Travel Exhibitions has confirmed it will host the first ATM Global Halal Tourism Summit as part of its line-up of special focus events.

The one-day summit, scheduled to take place on Wednesday, April 26th, 2017, on the Global Stage at Arabian Travel Market, will feature three interactive seminar sessions covering the big picture, halal destination strategies and how to sell halal travel.

The event will be led by Muslim travel industry experts including Faeez Fadhlillah, co-founder of Salam Standard and Nabeel Shariff, founder of Serendipity Tailormade.

A 2014 report by Thomson Reuters valued the global halal food and lifestyle sector at US$1.8 trillion and this is expected to reach US$2.6 trillion by 2020.

That figure was supported by research commissioned by the government of Dubai, and produced by Thomson Reuters in partnership with DinarStandard, which found that halal tourism represents 11.6 per cent of global tourism expenditure, estimating the sector would be worth US$238 billion by 2019.

The summit announcement follows a special roundtable session about halal tourism, organised by Reed Travel Exhibitions, which took place earlier this year in Dubai.

Halal tourism is defined as the provision of services and facilities that address the specific needs of Islamic travellers, such as halal food, dry hotels and separate male/female facilities.

However, it can mean different things to different people, thus creating both challenges and opportunities for the regional and global tourism sector when it comes to servicing the needs of halal tourists.