Internal Halal auditor’s programme for hotels initiated

Halal Industry Development Corporation (HDC) initiated the first Halal internal auditor’s programme for the hotel and tourism industry earlier this week, amidst the increasing discussion on how hotels are adapting to the requirements of Halal certification.

The initiative, which was launched by Minister of International Trade & Industry, Dato’ Seri Mustapa Mohamed in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, comes in the wake of an increasing tourists arrival from the Middle East, up to 500,000 last year. Although Halal certification is voluntary, many hotels have decided to go Halal to attract these big spenders who have decided to make Malaysia their number one tourism destination.

To'Pa hammering the ice as HDC's Chairman Tan Sri Syed Jalaludin (left) and HDC's CEO Dato' Jamil Bidin watches.

Dato’ Seri Jamil Bidin, chief executive officer of HDC said: “Halal tourism is becoming more and more popular each year. Malaysia, for instance, has been leading the way in the halal tourism industry and has been successful in trying to attract Muslim tourists from all over the world, especially the Middle Eastern travelers, by offering facilities in accordance with the religious beliefs of these Muslim tourists.”

The Halal Internal Auditors (HIA) programme for Hotels is being carried out in close cooperation with the Malaysia Association of Hotels (MAH), and Jakim. The programme content includes Shariah principles and requirements related to Halal, the technical components of raw materials and ingredients, Halal certification integrated requirements, which includes Halal standards and manual procedures of Halal Certification Malaysia, internal audit Halal components and mock audits.

Participating hotel personnel will include executives and managers in charge of Halal matters, quality control and quality assurance, production and general operations of the hotel. The three-day course will comprise lectures, presentations, workshop discussion and simulated audits where the key outcomes will enable the personnel to manage its own internal audit programmes from the planning phase till final report stage.

“We would like to assume that up till now several four and five-star hotels in the bigger cities are fully aware of the requirements of Halal certification. However, there is yet a fairly big number in the hospitality trade and sector that have to understand the whole picture of Halal and its ancillary requirements for clean, safe and hygienic attributes,” said Jamil.

The HIA comes as a next step to a dialogue HDC held with hoteliers in June 2009 and followed by Halal Awareness Programme in 2010 . The feedback from this dialogue indicated that many would like to become truly well versed with the entire checklist of requirements of Halal certification.

“The HIA is actually an expansion of HDC’s existing Internal Auditing workshop programme (HIP03). Halal auditing has always been a mainstay in our training programmes, as Halal integrity is an encompassing concern in the Halal eco-system. HIA workshops will be offered to 15 more ready and willing hotels throughout Malaysia until end of 2011, and will continue in the following years,” he added.

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