Title: ‘Prospects of Sustainable Tourism in Oman”
Abstract
Background: Dwindling oil prices and depleting oil resources have forced the Sultanate of Oman to look into and promote alternate sources of revenue for the past few years. With great potential of natural resources, culture, heritage and hospitality, the country has decided to develop its promising tourism sector. Unlike its neighbours in the Middle East/Arabian peninsula, the Sultanate, endowed with great potential for tourism development, has to give thrust to sustainable tourism development to succeed and enjoy the fruits, if the country has to achieve the results for a longer period for the growth and development of the nation. This is a challenging task for the nation whose tourism
…show more content…
INTRODUCTION
The Sultanate of Oman, the second largest country among the GCC nations, is a region blessed with natural beauty, diverse environment, rich culture and a warm society well known for its hospitality. Strategically located with a long coast, the country has strong political and economic stability unlike many countries in the region. In short, the country offers or has all ingredients for the prospective development of tourism, though the Sultanate’s economy is firmly built on its oil reserves.
With the current fluctuations in oil price and depleting oil reserves which can affect the economic growth of the country, the Oman government has identified tourism sector as a prospective economic contributor. The sector is not developed to its fullest potential yet and the country has to go a long way in terms of establishing a successful industry which could become a major contributor to the economy.
In this scenario, I propose to do my research on, “Prospects of sustainable tourism in Oman.” The study will evaluate the prospect of sustainable tourism in Oman, how can sustainable tourism be successfully implemented in Oman. The current status, growth of tourism in Oman, the contributing factors for growth, issues faced at various levels, will be studied and analyzed to propose the
…show more content…
This dissertation will research on the prospects and possibilities, means and deterrents in the implementation of sustainable tourism in the country.
Prospects of sustainable tourism in Oman: The following issues will be further explored to understand the prospects of implementing sustainable tourism in the country. Different questionnaires will be sent to different categories of respondents: • What is the growth and development of tourism as an industry in the Sultanate of Oman in the past decade? • How much will the tourism sector contribute to the national economy in the near future?
• How much are the government’s policy and vision in line with sustainable tourism? • What is the role of leadership in developing sustainable tourism and implementing it
The concept of sustainable tourism is applicable to all forms of tourism in all types of destinations, including the mass tourism like Cox’s Bazar. Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development. Sustainable tourism requires the establishment of a suitable balance between these three dimensions to guarantee long-term sustainability of tourism development. So, it is important to create a specific guideline for all stakeholders that will be effective for Sustainable
... of international business and services in the Middle East. One of the ways it has achieved this is through its public policy towards tourism. Dubai’s actions towards and success around tourism are a direct result of its and its neighbors wealth from oil, as well as its central planning. While it has achieved remarkable success in a relatively short period, its tourism industry and overall development has also been affected by the global financial crisis and Arab Spring movements. As Dubai resets its course after its own economic recession, it needs to be aware of opportunities within the tourism industry around focusing on consumer segments other than the high-end, luxury tourists and developing cultural and heritage attractions, potentially around the booming gastronomic tourism market and its emergence as a gastronomic destination.
In 1992, Rio Earth Summit, the World Tourism Organization and the World Travel and Tourism Council published Agenda 21 which mentioned the importance of sustainable development and defined the environmental and social impacts associated with hotel operation that should be minimized (Meade and Pringle, 2001). Nowadays, hospitality operations concern more about environmental sustainability because hotel sustainability might be a unique selling point for attracting environmentally sensitive customers and add extra value of influencing the customers’ choice of vacation decisions (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2013). Moreover, hotels have been valued as a key trading partner in tourism, therefore, the hospitality industry has a significant
When the industries are on peak positions then managing diversity is a critical to competiveness. Diversity management reacts to proactive rapid change. This is the reason the sustainable tourism focuses on the cultural and the natural resources. Sustainable tourism is the concept of visiting places as a tourist and trying to make and positive impact on the environment. Mainly the heritage value of the place, cultural identity of the place, the natural value of the place contributes to the destination of the tourism.
Another important aspect of why government really tried hard to develop the tourism sector as it helps to create direct and indirect jobs. In 2016 Travel & Tourism directly supported 45,500 jobs (8.2% of total employment). This is expected to remain unchanged in 2017 and rise by 1.9% pa to 55,000 jobs (9.4% of total employment) in 2027. . In 2016 Travel & Tourism , including jobs indirectly supported by the IWAS 24.3 % of the total employment (135,000 jobs). This is expected to rise by 0.3% in 2017 to 135,500 jobs and rise by 1.7% pa to 161,000 jobs in 2027 (27.4% of total).
Nowadays in the rea of globalization, according to the World Tourism Organization, “seven hundred million people travelled abroad in 2003”, and the number is estimated to increase to 1.6 billion by 2020. (International Labour Organization, 2005). Tourism is spreading in unusual places. A lot of people want to be in the midst of adventure. It is a vital source of revenues for the GDP of many countries. I partially agree that tourism hugely benefits the local community. This essay will discuss some of the economic, social and environment effect of tourism on the host community.
The green strategies initiated in the visitation to natural setting minimize degradation of the ecosystem; thus, increasing returns from tourism. The trends, in turn, can inspire stakeholders to preserve resources that benefit all. Ecological tourism also encourages less damaging ventures for profit such as bird watching, which, in turn, makes it easier encouraging conservation as the incentive to help minimize exploitation of the natural resources. The tourism also creates a platform for exchanging knowledge on preservation activities and such makes ecological conservation easier. Another way in which the tourism can benefit the people is that it facilitates utilization of returns of tourism equally thus spurring economic growth. The tourism also minimizes overexploitation of resources which contributes to the pollution of the environment. In addition to enhancing the construction of infrastructure for tourism, the funds from tourism can facilitate promotion of cultural activities that ease environmental conservation such as site
In recent years, tourism marketing has gone through strategic changes with the improvement in new technologies, the chase of a relationship between customers and suppliers as well as the importance of sustainability issues in marketing. Marketing Tourism reconsiders the needs of the tourists but does not overlook on the long term economic, environmental, social and cultural interests of the local population. So, it means that marketing consider both the tourist demand and effect to society as
Alternative tourism, also known as sustainable tourism, is different from mass tourism as it establishes an equal balance between the environmental, economic and the socio-cultural aspects of the tourism industry. Alternative tourism plays a vital role in the industry as it aids in the preservation of the local culture and conserving the flora and fauna of that place. Alternative tourism contributes to these various key variables which include generating income to improve the local economy and creating jobs opportunities, while minimizing the impacts on the environment, such as conserving the local biodiversity and the local culture for the future generations. WTO, Sept 2014 -. In this essay, it will point out the arguments and the key points about the concerns of the paper that will be covered in the essay, the effects of mass tourism has led to the depletion of natural resources such as fresh water, local resources such as food and raw materials, it can also lead to land degradation and pollution, these are the few of many undesirable effects that come from mass tourism.
Tourism is an important and intricate element to society. It affects economical, social, cultural and environmental elements. Tourism can be argued to have a negative impact on the environment and decrease our already depleting resources, but tourism can also be argued to be a major contributor to strengthening economies, spread cultural traditions and improve people’s lives. Tourism
“Tourism sector plays key role in economic development.” Economics. Radio the Voice of Vietnam. 2004
The negative impacts that tourism creates can destroy the environment and all of its resources which it depends of for survival. Tourism has the prospective to create and bring useful effects on to the environment by donation the environmental protection conservation.
Tourism is the one of economic and social activities that increasingly vital. Number of travellers domestic and international is increasing. In fact, several countries in present world develop tourism sectors as primary sector which generate national income. According to Salah Wahab and Cooper (2003). Tourism is also sector which involves role that mutually link between government, private sector and also public.
“A stakeholder is anyone who participates in the project or who will be affected by the results of the project, and may include…people and groups within and outside of the organization” (Brown & Hyer, 2010, p.107-108). In the article, “Stakeholders’ Contribution in Sustainable Tourism” A. Kadi, M. Jaafar, & F. Hassan (2015) seeks to explain how tourism stakeholders affect tourism destinations and the need for collaboration between all the stakeholders. After reading the article, I found that the findings supported how the stakeholders influenced tourism and the packages offered through economic impact on tourism destinations in which Kadi, Jaafar, & Hassan attempt to make known through highlighting the issues and challenges in the tourism industry.
At the present time, one of the inseparable parts of the economic growth is considered as tourism industry. Commonly, tourism is the movement of people to other places for business or leisure purposes as well as covers their activities. Holloway and Humphreys defines that the places where tourists come and spend their money are called as “tourist destinations” in other words “receiving areas”. Many countries have been improving tourism to overcome economic difficulties since it is growing fast. The industry activities have been demonstrated a general positive trend in the economy and it has already become the inherent part of economic development. In host countries, tourism has led to such positive consequences as the improved infrastructure,