PRESS RELEASES

Halalbooking celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2024. It is fitting, therefore, that the brand has also reached the milestone of welcoming its 1 millionth Halalbooking Loyalty Club (HBLC) member. There has been a huge surge in interest in recent years, with HBLC membership growing from fewer than 100,000 members in 2019.

Halalbooking had another successful angel investment round in July 2023, representing the next stage of its Series B round. This saw $2.5 million of new cash invested in July at a company valuation of $102 million. This is added to the $5 million convertible loan invested in 2021, which has now been converted into Series B shares at a 20% discount from the above valuation. Thus the total for the round so far is $7.5 million. The round is capped at a maximum of $10 million to be completed by the end of the year. This means that $2.5 million more is available as a headroom amount to be subscribed to at the same valuation.

Halalbooking is delighted to announce the renewal of its partnership with the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles programme. Both parties signed the partnership agreement during ITB Berlin, the world’s leading tourism trade show.

On Wednesday evening, Halalbooking launched an emergency appeal for the victims of the massive earthquakes that devastated southeastern Türkiye, claiming over 19,000 lives, injuring more than 71,000 and destroying infrastructure. 10 provinces with more than 13 million people are affected by this devastating natural disaster that struck twice on Monday while many were still asleep.

Halalbooking, the world’s leading OTA for halal-friendly travel, continued its success story in 2022. Today, it announced its 2022 financial results with a new company sales record of $52 million for the year ended 31st December 2022. If compared in USD this is a 45% growth in sales compared to the previous year. This result exceeds the year's $50 million target and was achieved despite new post-Covid challenges and pressures on consumer spending power, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, high flight ticket prices, the cost-of-living crisis, etc. Whilst the company reports its results in US Dollars, due to the international nature of its business, most of its sales actually take place in Euro and GBP. Had it not been for the unusual strengthening of the US Dollar throughout 2022, results in USD would have been close to $60 million at a growth rate of 62%. This was, in fact, the YoY growth rate when compared in GBP and EUR and is also reflected in the 64% increase in the number of bookings.

In 2021, Halalbooking, the world’s leading platform for halal-friendly travel, not only fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels but even reported a record year. 2021 sales were $36 million, which was significantly higher than 2019’s figure of $31 million not to mention 2020’s sales of just $8 million. The overall profit margin on sales (equating to the OTA commission level) was 17%, and the company made over $1 million net profit for the first time in its history.

In 2021, Halalbooking, the world’s leading platform for halal-friendly travel, not only fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels but even reported a record year. 2021 sales were $36 million, which was significantly higher than 2019’s figure of $31 million not to mention 2020’s sales of just $8 million. The overall profit margin on sales (equating to the OTA commission level) was 17%, and the company made over $1 million net profit for the first time in its history.

Halalbooking is proud to report its return to exponential growth in 2021, mirroring the 50-70% year-on-year exponential growth the company experienced before the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. In 2019, Halalbooking had sales of $31 million. However, in 2020 in the height of the pandemic, the travel sector was one of the hardest-hit and sales dropped to just $8 million. It is, therefore, a huge achievement that in 2021, sales had recovered to pre-pandemic levels with record sales in most of its major markets.

Halalbooking is delighted to announce that it has renewed its partnership with Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles programme. The initial one year partnership, which had been first agreed in December 2019, was extended by 6 months due to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the severe impact of the pandemic on global travel, both sides did see positive benefits from the partnership. Thanks to its safe tourism policy, tourism to Turkey bounced back quickly in Summer 2020.

Halalbooking reported another record-breaking month with June sales of $12 million. This is the first time ever that the company, which is the leading online platform for halal-friendly accommodation worldwide, has achieved more than $10 million sales in a single month. The previous record was $5 million sales, which was reached in July 2019. June 2021 represents a 150% increase in comparison to June 2019.

In May 2021, Halalbooking, the world’s leading accommodation booking platform for halal-friendly travel, recorded sales of 4.4 million USD; up from 3.5 million USD in the same month in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic struck. It represents an astonishing recovery for the company, especially in the 2nd half of the month. Halalbooking is now on track to be back to its pre-Covid 2.0x growth rate, forecasting sales of 60 million USD in 2021 compared to 32 million in 2019.

Halalbooking received a $5 million investment in March 2021. The investment is the first part of the larger $20 million campaign to raise Series B funding. $5 million was invested by a group of private angel investors, including British Business Bank, in the form of a pre-Series B convertible loan agreement. The company is currently in discussions with a few VC and PE funds to act as a lead investor for the remaining $15 million. The forecasted valuation is $75 million. The company hopes to choose the lead investor and close the round within the second quarter of 2021. The funds raised will be used to boost the company’s exponential growth for 2022-24 and achieve a $1bln IPO target in 2024.

Halalbooking Buoyed by its Survey Results Showing Customers Very Keen to Travel in 2021 Halalbooking is the global leader for halal-friendly hotels and villas. Its online booking platform offers customers the possibility of filtering accommodation by halal filters. The most popular filters on the site are those for halal food and alcohol-free areas, as well as for accommodation offered on an all-inclusive basis. Halalbooking wanted to find out more about its customers’ attitudes towards travel during the coronavirus pandemic, so it carried out an online survey in January 2021 and received almost 2000 responses. Despite the pandemic more than half of all customers did have a hotel stay in 2020

Halalbooking was delighted to be awarded Travolution’s Rising Brand of the Year award yesterday at the Travolution Awards 2020. Travolution is the UK’s leading digital publication dedicated to the online travel industry. The Rising Brand of the Year award is one of the special awards given out annually, the winner being decided by Travolution and its independent judges on the basis of the performance in the 12-month period of the awards.

Already in August 2020, Halalbooking had made a full post-Covid recovery with sales of $2.7 million, which represented an increase of 10% year on year. In September, results were even better with an increase in overall sales of over 25% compared to the same month in 2019. The company forecasts going back to a rate of 100% year on year growth by December, the growth rate it was experiencing before Covid.

In 2019, Halalbooking recorded record sales of $33 million US dollars, up from $21 million in the previous year, setting it well on track to record an exponential 2x rate of growth in 2020. With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent worldwide lockdown, however, Halalbooking, like all travel companies, was badly hit, recording almost no sales in the period from March to June and dealing with a huge volume of cancelled and postponed trips. Unlike most travel companies, however, Halalbooking has bounced back quickly, achieving an astonishing feat by fully recovering its sales for August 2020, in comparison with the previous year. The company is now aiming to return to 2x growth rate by the end of the year.

Our Chief Marketing Officer, Ufuk Seçgin, has been visiting Turkey’s beautiful Mediterranean holiday resort of Alanya, home to world-leading halal-friendly resort hotels. How have hotels achieved the balance between imposing strict hygiene and ensuring a relaxing environment? He wanted to find out, at first hand, what has changed and what has stayed the same. This is what he found:

We are pleased to announce that Halalbooking has secured a £1.6 million (~$2M) Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan (CBILS) from HSBC Bank. The CBILS is a UK-government-backed scheme with favourable terms.

The Financial Times has just published its FT 1000, the fourth annual list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. It lists the European companies that achieved the highest compound annual growth in revenue between 2015 and 2018.

Halalbooking is delighted to have started the new year with the launch of a brand new partnership with Turkish Airlines’ prestigious Miles&Smiles loyalty program.

Halalbooking has closed its small Series A round, with a post-money valuation of $52.5 million USD.

Halalbooking’s results for the first three quarters of 2019 show that over 75,000 guests have booked through its website, using its unique halal-friendly search functionality to choose hotel and villa accommodation. The value of its bookings in the same period was $26.5 million. This is an increase of 46% on the same period last year.

Halalbooking is pleased to announce a pre-series A round, with a valuation of $50 million USD. $2 million was raised from a group of individual investors, led by Azar Gurbanov, a co-founder of New York-based FSAstore.com, the USA’s leading wellness e-commerce website, which recently achieved a successful exit.

June 2019 saw a record number of bookings made on halalbooking.com, leading global platform for halal-friendly accommodation worldwide. It recorded its highest figure for monthly sales, since the company started in 2009. It made international sales totalling over $4 million (USD) in the month of June 2019 alone.

Halalbooking is delighted to announce the launch of Klarna’s ‘Slice it in 3’ payment service for its UK customers. This service will allow customers to divide payment into three instalments.

World-leading online platform for halal-friendly travel, Halalbooking, has entered into a co-branding agreement with Turkey’s foremost participation bank, Kuveyt Türk. Kuveyt Türk’s customers who are Sağlam Gold Card, Sağlam Platinum Card or Private Banking Credit Card holders will enjoy a year’s complimentary Halalbooking Loyalty Club Platinum or Diamond membership, allowing them to benefit from discounts of up to 20% on accommodation booked through halalbooking.com.

Halalbooking was delighted to win the ‘Travel and Tourism Business of the Year’ award at the prestigious Islam Channel Business Awards 19. The award was presented to Ufuk Seçgin, Chief Marketing Officer of Halalbooking, at the awards ceremony held on Friday 1st March at the Hilton London Metropole.

Halalbooking is delighted to announce that it has renewed its European exclusivity contract with Wome Deluxe.

2018 was another successful year for Halalbooking, 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 $12 million USD, which is an increase of $5 million USD on the previous year. Its net profit also rose to an impressive $830,000 USD in the same year. It is set to record similar growth again in 2018.

Halalbooking, the leading online search and booking platform for halal-friendly accommodation is delighted to have been included in the 22nd annual Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100.

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.

You’ll be hearing a lot more about Morocco. It is an up-and-coming destination, which has been growing in popularity with the customers of Halalbooking, the leading online search and booking platform for halal-conscious travellers. The company, therefore, decided it was time to bring this enchanting destination to a wider audience.

Halalbooking had another record-breaking year in 2017, with sales and turnover doubling year on year for the 8th year running, with tens of thousands of customers from more than 70 countries.

We are proud to launch Bof Uludağ Ski & Convention Resort, the world’s biggest alcohol-free ski hotel and the first alcohol-free ski resort on...

Halalbooking, the leading online platform for halal-friendly travel, is delighted to announce the launch of its HB Loyalty Club (HBLC). The Club has three tiers: Gold, Platinum and Diamond.

Following a meeting in Istanbul, Halalbooking and Wome Deluxe Hotel have announced a new and exclusive partnership for 2018. Wome Deluxe has appointed Halalbooking as its sole and exclusive sales agent for the European market.

Halalbooking recently organised an international familiarisation trip for 28 travel agents, to Turkey’s popular Antalya region. With 20 halal-friendly hotels in the area, this is widely regarded as the world’s leading destination for halal-conscious holidaymakers. The participating agents were from 10 countries (Denmark, UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Algeria, Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon and Turkey)

The Halal travel market is one of the youngest and most dynamic sectors in the travel industry. It is expected that the Muslim market spend on outbound travel will reach $243 billion by 2021.

Halalbooking, the global leading search & book website for halal travel, announced today its new head office in the famous Thames Valley Business Park in Reading-upon-Thames, west of London. Here are extracts from the executive team of the company:

UK-based Halalbooking, the world-leading search and book website for halal travel, today announced that it has raised $1m in Series A round funding at $30m evaluation from a private venture capitalist...

The popularity of Muslim-friendly holidays is soaring faster than any other travel sector in the world, the leading “search & book” website for halal-conscious travel, Halalbooking, has confirmed...