Presentation by Mikhail Melvin Goh of Have Halal, Will Travel

National Library, Singapore,
January 9, 2019 

Mikhail Melvin Goh, founder of Have Halal, Will Travel (#HHWT), spoke on behalf of Eye on Asia, a National Library project designed to increase interest in ASEAN. 

A summary of his presentation and ensuing Q&A session is below:

Melvin was his name before he converted to Islam, and he now goes by  the Muslim name Mikhail (a variation of Michael, the Archangel).

Goh's background in digital marketing has proven highly useful in his current endeavor. His travel publications reach around 9.4 million viewers.

Melvin calls Muslims--all 1.8 billion of them--the biggest invisible market segment worldwide. Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia have 240 million Muslims. Indonesia in particular is seeing a boom in its middle class, creating new demands for services and products. Yet, despite these numbers, as recently as three to four years ago, no major companies were consistently targeting this group.

Melvin was drinking ocha/tea at a Mongolian restaurant in Tokyo when a terrorist attack occurred in Paris. Someone asked him, why are Muslims killing non-Muslims, and what is halal? Japan’s exposure to Muslims is mostly through its 100,000 domestic Muslim residents. At that moment, he thought to himself, "What if I use this platform I’ve created to facilitate meaningful exchanges?"

Islam means submission "to God." The five pillars of Islam are: shahada (belief in one God, with Muhammad (PBUH) as his final messenger); salah (prayer); zakat (charity); Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca); and fasting (during Ramadan).

Halal means permissible. It impacts multiple industries, including food, cosmetics, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals. For example, alcohol, which is haram (aka impermissible), is a key ingredient in many drugs. In terms of lifestyle, key halal areas include food, travel, fashion, and Islamic banking (sharia-compliant finance). 

What's the biggest trend in travel? Muslims are looking for authentic travel experiences. 74% “wish to immerse themselves in culture.” Japan is an oft-cited destination. Sight-seeing and local food are top desires.

About 20% of Muslims [geographic area not specified] are highly educated--doctors, engineers, and scientists who travel frequently.

Muslim travelers want autonomy, authenticity (to live like locals), and a sense of belonging.

Goh's recommendations for businesses: take stock what you already have—many workers in larger companies are already Muslim, so ask them any questions you have; get the basics right; promote your products through the right channels; and focus on experiences.

Q&A session

Q: The halal designation seems to be overused. Do you ever wonder if your industry is diluting the concept of halal by using it across so many different areas? 

A: Halal is a set of principles but it varies widely; for example, in SE Asia, prawns are halal, but in many places in the Middle East, they’re not. Certification is not the only way to go; over-labeling is occurring because of market demand.

Q: What were your experiences and challenges in working with governments?

A: “China is using tourism as a weapon” in terms of directing travel agencies not to send tourists to certain countries when political disputes arise. For example, the number of Chinese tourists in Korea dramatically dropped for a time because of the Chinese government’s actions and recommendations. In short, China mixes tourism and politics. Overall, governments must first realize Islamic travelers are a lucrative market. Some governments think Muslims are a national security issue and prefer to “wait and see.” In Australia, some people don’t like Muslims, and windows displaying halal signs were smashed after terrorist attacks in other countries.

Q: How do you find halal shops overseas? Some shops aren’t listed even though they are halal.

A: It’s [people like] you. Most countries are not like Singapore, top-down, consistent—a lot of things occur at a grassroots level. We have several ways of getting information. One, as I mentioned, is user input; second is official government agencies; third is writers. 

Q: How do you scale?

A: Scaling is like piloting a rocketship into space. If you don’t know where you’re flying to, there’s no point. How much fuel (capital, user engagement) do you put into the rocket? In which direction do you point the rocket? 

Q: What are your sources of income?

A: Consulting for airlines and delivery services, especially in the area of customization for Muslim customers. 

Q: How do you reach out to your 9.4 million viewers and build trust?

A: We found people who were interested in the same things as us, and who were willing to give information because they believed in us. We gain trust by having standards and having a vision. We are not separatists—we do not say, “We are halal, you are not.” We believe in integration. Be human, stand for something.

Q: How do you see Singapore's role in halal issues? 

A: We are a multi-ethnic population. We have been living side by side for a very long time. We are very blessed because of our history. One of the things Singapore faces as a challenge is the articulation of the next step. Why would I travel if I'm going to eat the same thing [in Singapore as in Indonesia]? It becomes a question of story-telling and differentiation. The key is to improve services across the board, not just food. Thankfully, governments are willing to listen. 

Q: What is the future for halal travel in Thailand?

A: Thailand, like Singapore, is very blessed [in terms of diversity]. Bangkok has whole streets with Muslim businesses. Thailand is also blessed in terms of geography—its time zone means short flight times for ASEAN residents. People are nice. The challenge for the Thai government is to get tourists out of Bangkok and into places like Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, etc. 

Book Review: Melody Warnick's This is Where You Belong

Melody Warnick's attempt at evaluating what makes some cities "stickier" than others is earnest, but too wordy. 

Though Warnick is probably a lovely person, such qualities don't mean her ideas are interesting enough to warrant an entire book. I'm not sure if she was paid by the word, but I started skimming pages after the following factoid: "liberals want to drive Honda Civic Hybrids. Conservatives want to drive Ford Mustang convertibles." (What do libertarians or socialists prefer, I asked myself in an immediate moment of snark, imagining various possibilities.) 

Warnick's fatal--and unforgivable--mistake is failing to recognize a key detail: college towns (like Blacksburg, VA) are lovely places to live for intellectuals/readers. Instead of placing this unique feature of her eventual hometown front and center, Warnick spends excessive time discussing how cities can attract and keep committed residents, especially younger ones. (Actual quote: "Do What Your Town is Good At.") 

Jane Jacobs and Richard Florida are the mavens in the "city analytics" genre, and I suggest you start with them if interested in this subject matter. 

Bonus: I enjoyed the following blurb about Canada/USA social capital. 

Someone Tell Eagle Creek It's Colombia, not Columbia

Why do I get the feeling travel lists and guides are mostly written by people who don't actually travel?  

Poem from Pasternak

"The nights now sit down to play chess with me Where ivory moonlight chequers the floor. It smells of acacia, the windows are open, And passion, a grey witness, stands by the door."
-- Boris Pasternak, "Marburg"

Marburg refers to the German city where Pasternak decided to study around 1912, after his mother gave him an unexpected financial gift. He later published My Sister, Life (1917) and Doctor Zhivago (1957) in his native Russian.

Bonus: "I have a feeling that, for purposes unknown to me, my importance is being deliberately inflated... all this by somebody else's hands, without asking my consent. And I shun nothing in the whole world more than fanfare, sensationalism, and so-called cheap 'celebrity' in the press."

MIA: Context

With Western-led programs focusing on eliminating plastic bags and plastic straws as well as opioid overdoses, one wonders if we need a program to bring back context and common sense.

By way of example, 70,237 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017. It's unclear whether this number includes ~45,000 annual suicides, but there were also 17,250 homicides, meaning 2.5x as many Americans died by suicide as homicide. Though seemingly large, these numbers, standing alone, lack context.

66% of America's population--or about 216 million people--is between 15-64. The math is simple enough for a 6th grader: only 0.061% of America's prime-aged population are/were involved in drug overdoses, suicides, and homicides.

The bigger problem? 1% (2.2 million) of America's population between 15 and 64 years old is in jail/prison. An additional 2.1% (4.7 million) are on probation or parole.

Abnormally high incarceration rates are the result of the American military's tendency to transfer its processes (supply chain logistics) and approaches (safety through deterrence) to the civilian sector. In this case, despite knowing Kissinger's deterrence model failed in Vietnam and thereafter (9/11), the U.S. government has decided to use the same approach against domestic criminals:

Discussing Sioux Falls, South Dakota's current economy, Mr. Fallows describes the city's choice of institutions a long time ago: "Would it prefer to be the home of the state university? Or the state penitentiary? ... the penitentiary offered steadier work for locals, so that is what they took." (From Our Towns (2018))

The federal government is able to pursue illogical ideas for reasons any Keynesian economist can understand: an approach backed by unlimited printing of money will seem to succeed even as it fails because it lowers the unemployment rate. Moreover, if the U.S. government admits its approach has failed, it cannot receive any return on its spending through the export and sale of its model to foreign allies, who are obligated to purchase a certain level of weapons and consulting every year to maintain the integrity of the U.S.-led military alliance.

Aside from incarceration rates (a severe problem) and opiods (not a severe problem), "an estimated 1/6 adults in America is on some form of psychiatric medication (a statistic that doesn't even include the use of sleeping pills, or pain pills, or the off-the-label use of other medications for psychological purposes)." [Jamieson Webster, The New York Review (November 2018)]

Oh, those plastic straws I mentioned earlier? According to Reason.com, "Plastic pollution in the ocean is a real problem, but only about 1 percent of it comes from the U.S. Of that 1 percent, only a tiny fraction comes from plastic straws."

One wonders why larger countries, given their dominance over both physical and digital platforms, have become so intellectually flaccid. I do not have a definitive answer. I only know, as an outspoken person who tends to support the underdog, that I prefer my governments to have grander visions than the elimination of plastic.

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2018)

Bonus: I recently browsed through O'Brien's book (titled Keating) about a brilliant Aussie PM, Paul Keating. The depth and breadth of his accomplishments are remarkable.

He advanced Aboriginal property rights, became a catalyst for APEC cooperation (despite Malaysia's desire for an Asian-led, Asian-exclusive coalition), and helped lower a 10% unemployment rate. Other than the U.K.'s Gordon Brown and Czechoslovakia's Vaclav Havel, it's difficult to find another Western politician who accomplished so much. (I will count Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew as an Eastern politician, given his less than favorable view of the British.)

Australia's small population certainly assists its ability to successfully implement ideas, but the question remains: how can we reverse the increasing irrelevance of politicians in larger, less homogeneous countries, where legal complexity and debt-backed trade agreements render the individual citizen less and less important?

Bonus:

From National Geographic (2019)

Interview with HalalTrip's Fazal Bahardeen

I met HalalTrip’s Fazal Bahardeen in Geylang Serai, Singapore. 

Q: You work in the travel business. What countries would you recommend?

A: Malaysia, specifically Penang and the beach town of Langkawi. Also, Jordan. Petra is beautiful.

Q: It’s not too touristy?

A: Well, it is, but you can focus on the architecture and surroundings. You’re seeing structures that have been there for thousands of years.

Q: They told me the same thing about Stonehenge, and I wasn’t impressed. I try to read a book about a place before I go—for Indonesia, I’d recommend Toer’s This Earth of Mankind—but I can’t think of a single book by a Jordanian author.

A: Stonehenge is just a bunch of stones, but Petra has houses, people used to live there. The city was the site of an advanced civilization.

Q: What’s the name of the civilization you’re referring to?

A: There are two or three, but the Nabatean Kingdom comes to mind. Petra is a very old place. Wadi Musa means the Valley of Moses. Some scholars say Koranic verses exist about the people who used to live there, how they were so big and used to mountain living. 

Q: We’re having biryani together, which I’ve had many times, but this dessert is new to me. What is suji? It’s like kheer, but not the same. Absolutely delicious.

A: The ingredient is semolina… same thing they use for cous cous. It’s a grain.

Q: You actually have two companies, HalalTrip and CrescentRating. Tell me about them.

A: CrescentRating is completely different from the [HalalTrip] app. CrescentRating is BtoB [business to business]. It helps businesses target the Muslim market. We write reports, work with governments, create training programs, and issue ratings based on our proprietary algorithm. Basically, CresentRating provides [consulting] services to enable the industry to target and welcome Muslim travelers. It helps Muslim travelers find out where to go, what are the places for food, etc. 

The consumer-generated reviews are on HalalTrip, which is like TripAdvisor. On CrescentRating, we would determine whether a hotel fits our criteria and provide a rating from 1 to 7. The HalalTrip app would then display our own rating.

Q: How do you ensure accuracy in the information used by your algorithm? Do you travel yourself to check out the places you rate?

A: I don’t travel myself to fulfill the ratings. If you want a rating, the hotel, shopping mall or restaurant has to apply. Once they register, then we get a local person to do the audit. We have partners in some countries and local company contacts. In some cases, we have freelancers, people who can register on our website to be auditors. 

Q: How do you ensure the veracity of the data if you rely on third parties?

A: Our contractors/auditors are trained by us. The hotel, restaurant, or other establishment will register on our website and provide/upload all the information we request. The auditor goes to the hotel and confirms the hotel has submitted correct information.

Q: Tell me more about HalalTrip.

A: HalalTrip is separated into three parts. One is the content we create ourselves: city guides, place discovery content, etc. We have a continually growing database of halal restaurants, we have [travel] attraction guides, and all these are created by us.

Second, we are dedicated to our tagline: “Get inspired, go, inspire others.” The content we create is to inspire others to travel, and we provide services, not just guides, making it easier to book hotels, visit attractions, and go sightseeing. We already have hotels [on our site], but it’s not enough. We need to expand, add experiences [like Airbnb], etc. 

Third, we encourage people to share their experiences. Generally, our travelers share their experiences with halal restaurants and mosques on our app. Here is the problem we have: sometimes we are unable to check the halalness of it. We try and check it as much as we can. We have a stamp that says “User Verified” but no independent fact checking for that rating. If it is HalalTrip certified, then we have done some research, though not always directly, to verify the halalness. We also have a third stamp, which indicates an establishment has been rated and verified by CrescentRating.

Q: I notice you already offer travel packages all around the world, even in non-Muslim countries like Croatia. I know Croatia’s economy depends substantially on tourism, but how did you end up working with them?

A: Most travel agencies come to us. Last week, a few French travel agencies came to us. It is them who come to us. Why do they come? We work with all suppliers, and we operate in different countries. We educate them on the needs of Muslim travelers.

Q: What does halal mean? Does it refer only to a specific procedure to prepare meat?

A: Halal means permissible, as opposed to haram. Halal food means permissible food. Vegetables and fruits are permissible, so a vegetarian restaurant is halal. When it comes to meat, it has to be slaughtered in a certain manner, according to Islamic requirements.

[Editor’s Note: zabihah aka dhabihah is a specific Arabic word meaning “slaughtered,” coming from another Arabic word, thabih, sometimes pronounced zabih. It only discusses one specific element of the halal requirements, whereas the term "halal" encompasses broader issues including but not limited to consumption of blood, types of permissible meat, etc.]

One might ask, “What is halal certified?” A certification body checks if this restaurant serves non-halal food. If the restaurant is only serving halal, it provides a certification. It does not mean they have to serve meat. 

[Interviewer's Note: under this broad definition, a Hindu restaurant serving only vegetarian food could be halal-certified. Attracting vegetarians is one way to broaden the appeal of the halal rating, and it will be interesting to see how such an approach will be implemented.] 

Q: Brigitte Bardot has campaigned against both halal slaughter and kosher slaughter (called shechitah). She claims the way animals are religiously slaughtered is inherently cruel. What do you say about her claims?

A: I'm not interested in Brigitte Bardot. I'm focused on my company. 

Q: How long has your company been around, and why does it seem like Islamic-based marketing is finally becoming popular? 

A: HalalTrip has been around 3 years. CrescentRating 10 years. Regarding your second question, there has been an increased awareness around Muslim consumers and [therefore] more and more halal options.

Q: How do you differentiate yourself?

A: We focus on what we have been doing. We are not focused on the competition currently. The space is big… the players in the space, you can count on your fingers… Right now, competition is not the [issue] that keeps me awake.

Q: Given the limited number of halal/Muslim traveler industry players, do you try to collaborate with each other rather than compete?

A: Collaborate? Not really… we know them personally, we are on good terms with them, but we are focused on what we are doing.

Q: What’s the most difficult part about your job?

A: Travel takes a toll on me, but that’s me… in the entrepreneurship space, we just do it.

Q: What’s the most challenging part about your job?

A: We are trying to raise funds. Other than that, when you are a startup, you get up in the morning, solve 100 things, go to sleep, and the next day, there are another 100 things to solve. That’s the life of a startup.

Q: I notice you have an Instagram account.

A: We are on FB, IG, Twitter… also YouTube. On Facebook, we have about 500,000 likes. We don’t spend too much money getting “likes.” We don’t have the time. We rarely pay Facebook for advertising. When we do, we boost some of our posts—that’s it. 

Q: In Singapore, what are your favorite halal restaurants?

A: Zam Zam (North Bridge Road), Rumah Makan Minang (18 Kandahar Street), and Bryani Dam (Geylang Serai hawker centre).

Q: What does it meant to you to be Singaporean?

A: Singapore is a secure, unique place, with all the efficiencies of a developed city, but also multiethnic and cosmopolitan.

Q: That’s a nice description, but I was asking what it means to you to be able to call yourself Singaporean. An American might answer, “freedom.”

A: As Singaporeans, we come from an environment which is very regulated and reliable and efficient, with strong governance in the business sector. I am proud to come from a city that represents these traits.

Note: this post has been updated to correct a few errors in transcription. A reference to HalalTrip's "full board" package has also been removed.