Friday 15 / November / 2024
Muscat: Oman’s tourism industry has the potential to turn into the Sultanate’s dominant revenue generator and even rise to become as good as ‘black gold’ for the country’s economy, owing to its natural infrastructure and new development projects, experts have said.
“It’s the next oil business,” said Issa Sultan Al Ismaili, who has been involved with the tourism industry for the last 15 years, and is currently executive director at Oman World Tourism.
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Al Ismaili stated that the country has all the different tools to make tourism work and if developed well the industry could complement the oil and gas sector and contribute about 80 per cent of the GDP (gross domestic product). “Tourism can contribute about 80 per cent of the GDP, we have the local human capital, we have an educated population, and 60 per cent of our population is very young, so the future is bright.”
He also attributed the income factor to new development projects, like airport expansion, Mina Sultan Qaboos Waterfront Project, convention centre and similar other projects, which will attract more tourists. “The new airport will drive more traffic and transit into the country, the growth of Oman Air, growth of demand for airlines requesting more landing space will drive more people and the convention will attract a different segment of people for conferences and events and make them come back for a holiday.”
Al Ismaili noted that the drop in oil prices would also lead people to think about diversifying the nation’s oil dependent economy. “Now that oil prices have dropped, it will open a lot of sleeping eyes in terms of diversifying our economy outside the revenues of oil and gas into tourism as one of the assets which is available, and for which we don’t need a lot of investment in terms of infrastructure.”
“Commercially, it can be a sound answer and a sustainable business model for generations, communities.”
Graham Stewart Leslie, chief executive officer of Al Siraj Hospitality said it’s not just about the GDP contribution of tourism, but the larger tertiary impact it can create. “I think the important point is all of the tertiary impacts that tourism can produce, so if you go into a rural area and create a tourist hub, which includes not just rooms, but agriculture, craft, artisans, it creates local jobs, work, all types of benefits that don’t meet the level that’s measured, the impact of what tourism could do to the country versus that of oil is very substantial and I would go as far to say, in a much larger way than oil can ever do for its people.”
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Al Ismaili has also been running a major Kite Boarding experience on Masirah Island, which according to him has been a contributing factor for growth in the area.
“We developed the Kite Boarding brand and we have contributed significantly to Masirah by bringing in 600 international tourists a year, with an average stay of six nights, and this has had a major impact on the island in the last five years.”
According to Leslie, opportunities in Oman are very significant, “I think the opportunities here are very substantial, it’s still a fresh palette from a large perspective. A lot has been done already from the infrastructure point of view, but now to get that brand of Oman across to would be tourists and how we package that, not just in marketing terms, but actually from a product perspective is the next thing.”
Al Siraj Hospitality has been involved in bringing authentic heritage experiences to people in the country, with the Bait al Luban restaurant being one such example.
“That is a small taste of what we want to do on a much larger scale, which is really to represent the best of the authentic elements of Oman, so the essence of Oman, both from a historical heritage perspective, and also from a contemporary point of view across various areas, hotels retreats, camps.”
With an existing diverse portfolio, the company plans to now create a network of tourist hubs across the country, “We have Travel City, Tour Oman, Big Bus, so we are already handling a large number of incoming travel to the country and so we have an understanding of that tourist market. The rest is all about what we will be launching over the next couple of years, which is really this network of Omani experience across the country—covering coastal areas, mountains, deserts, wadis, landscapes, nature and all-round experiences and then we would export that outside Oman and present Oman to the world in a different light.”
To establish a network of tourism related projects, the inclination of the people of the country needs to be diverted to the industry, Oman World Tourism’s Al Ismaili pointed out. “By nature, Omanis are hospitable, however that is not enough, vocational training is what we encourage, you don’t need degrees but attitudes to work in the hospitality industry, one of every 11 jobs in the world is tourism-related, so we need that change in the culture of the society, which is now moving in the right direction.”
Al Siraj Hospitality CEO Leslie agreed, “Moving away from those organic businesses that have evolved around oil, you are going to see a definite shift now and tourism will definitely experience growth.”
This will be through increased private sector involvement; you will see more of that shift from the traditional jobs, and part of our job is to make the industry a good place to want to work and a rewarding experience.”
Both the experts will be part of a panel discussion entitled “Hyperlocal Tourism” for the ‘Inside Stories’ event organised by Ithraa on Monday, September 19 at Bank Muscat’s headquarters. The event is open to public; to register, please visit this link ‘events.ithraa.om’
