The Gulf Arab states are pushing for a bigger share of the world's booming tourism market but with different strategies, Emirates Industrial Bank (EIB) reported on Saturday.
The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries "have of late made a strong bid to establish tourist industries in a region where there was hardly any tourist inflow at all," EIB said in a report.
It said Dubai was setting the trend of tourism, focused on vacationing and shopping rather than sightseeing, an area in which the Gulf can not compete with other Arab destinations such as Egypt.
It said the strategy has consisted of "developing resort type hotels on the beaches, leisure facilities (theme parks, golf courses), domestic airline support, organizing international (sports) events and easing of visa regulations," it said.
"Saudi is the most different, with emphasis on domestic tourism, and it plans to tap the large number of (Muslim) religious tourists to the country and promote their longer stay and travel within the country," said EIB.
It said the Gulf monarchies had launched a publicity blitz through a combination of advertising campaigns and staging global media events to raise the profile of the oil-rich region.
In terms of revenues from visitors, Saudi Arabia held first place with 1.462 billion dollars due to Mecca tourists, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 540 million dollars, according to World Tourism Organization figures for 1998.
EIB, which finances industrial projects, said the Middle East tourism industry as a whole grew by 17.4 percent in 1999, but the Arab world's share in global tourism remained a modest three percent – DUBAI (AFP)
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