The Muslim Women’s Travel Group targets trade expansion

Specialist tour operator The Muslim Women’s Travel Group has said the business is “open to building more relationships with travel agents” as it expands its destinations and departures.

The company, which has organised group tours for more than 1,000 Muslim women all over the world, became a member of Protected Trust Services this year.

Founder Sadia Ramzan said she had the idea for the business in 2015 when she appeared on BBC travel show Wildest Dreams, which took a group to the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Ramzan said: “It opened my eyes to the world beyond resorts and we were doing things I would never have done in a million years.

“When I came back, I was looking for a space with other women like me who wanted to travel.

“I had just started wearing the hijab and thought travel would be a bit different now that I was visibly Muslim. I needed a space where I could ask other Muslim women who got it, and there wasn’t one, so I made a Facebook group.”

That private group has surpassed 55,000 members and the company has organised trips to 36 destinations globally, including Antarctica, Japan, South Korea, Jordan, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Oman, Mexico, Peru, Kenya, Zanzibar, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Albania, Cambodia, Tunisia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan, Iceland, Thailand, Qatar and Vietnam.

The Muslim Women’s Travel Group will be operating its highest number of trips next year with 24 departures, nearly double previous years, including several new destinations such as South Africa and China, with an average group size of 12 to 15.

Ramzan has ambitions for the company to add another 12 trips in 2028 and said the repeat rate was so high that new destinations will need to be added based on interest lists from its customers.

“I have huge ambitions for this company and it’s something that I hope continues beyond me,” she said. “The brand is the women who trust us, come back again and again, and advocate for us, as we’ve never had to advertise and it’s all been word of mouth.”

The business worked with agents for the first time last year via a referral and commission model, where agents can give clients unique codes and earn pre-agreed commission for every completed booking.

Ramzan said: “We are open to building more relationships with travel agents through this model, particularly where their clients are looking for trusted, women-only, faith-conscious group travel experiences.”

She added that demand was high enough that the company operates a waitlist on all of its trips, and has customer bases across the UK, Europe, Canada and America. A number of non-Muslim women also join trips as they may prefer a non-drinking environment, halal food, or simply want to join the community.

The business employs a team of two full-time staff, in addition to 10 group leads who work ad hoc to lead trips, eight of whom started as paying customers.