Halal Tourism In Riau Province: The Concepts and Startegic Efforts

Halal tourism has become part of the Indonesia's tourism program. The Indonesian goverment has taken advantages of the momentum of halal tourism trend by initiating the soft launching of 12 provinces of halal tourism destination in Indonesia. Riau province, as one of the four corridors of Sumatra, becames a halal tourism destination in Indonesia. This article aims to describe the concept of halal tourism and to find startegic efforts to develop halal tourism in Riau Province. This article found that Halal tourism can be used as a branding for halal tourism in Riau Province. The solid Malay culture in Riau society incresingly strengthens the implementation of halal tourism because the life of Malay people is very close to the principles of Islam. Various strategic step need to be taken to establish halal tourism. The involvement of all partiens such as the central goverment, provincial goverment, tourism business actors, the people of Riau and Muslim communities from around the world is highly required.Riau Provincial goverment is responsible to issue a regulation, model, and master plan to implement halal tourism. In addition, academicians are also required to carry out studies regarding halal tourism. One more thing, branding a halal tourism, elegantly is very important to introduce Riau as halal tourism destination.