Thursday, December 28, 2006

so who is it all for then?

Tourists flocking into Muscat this year will have a fun surprise on their hands when they learn that a few of the 5 star hotels are closing up for renovations - woohoo for nothing at all.

That's what you get out of bad planning from both the Muscat group of Hotel companies along the help of the Ministry of Tourism.


Of the few 5 star hotels that will be closed up for total renovation over a period of 8 whole weeks, is the well known The Bustan Palace Hotel, which is known for it's royalty statement of enrolling its guests into speechless beautifully catered rooms at gasping views at the ocean from the behind and the mountains from the other side. This will be the second renovation this hotel receives in a period of 2-3 years. This very fine hotel was the top notch hotel until it was beaten the Shangri La Bar Al Jassa group of hotels that had been established by less than a year ago now, with also the comparison of The Bustan Palace Hotel enjoying the full support of government funding in all it's matters, the Shangri La is an overly high investment of private sector funding with little backup by the government.

Tourists now will have to go and reside into other hotels in Oman during the Muscat Festival 2007, which will commence on 1/1/2007 and end on 2/2/2007, such as the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Qurum, the Grand Hyatt, the Intercontinental Hotel, Muscat; and other hotel suites over Muscat amongst other 4 star hotels of which the government seems to be refusing to give further permissions to start newer hotels because it has stopped deploying grounds out for further commercial development but says that it is in talks with big names in the international hospitality industry in the GCC region for help in funding like the United Arab Emirates Al-Futtaim group of companies that has already set it's mark in The Wave project that should be finished in sometime in 2015 or nearer, as well The Blue City Project that still has a very long way to go with the largest investment in the entire Sultanate of over $1 billion US Dollars and another chain of small 5 star hotels to open up near the environmental sanctuary declared by the government of the Sultanate of Oman in the Ras Al Had area.

So whose really gaining here? Definitely the population - being the nationals, the citizens, the residents of Oman. Not the environment. But the economy is.

The question in my mind which I was settling down to was: is it the sound economy that enables a good political stability for a country or the other way around. Because as far as it seems, it looks like we are heading towards the capitalist system of world trade economies of worldly countries.

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Links:

- The Bustan Palace Hotel

- The Shangri La Bar Al Jassa group of Hotels

- The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Muscat

- The Intercontinental Hotel, Muscat

- the Grand Hyatt, Muscat

- The Golden Tulip Hotel, Seeb - Muscat

- Muscat Festival 2007

- Golden Sponsor: Gulf Air

2 comments:

muscati said...

The Bustan Palace hotel is actually going to close for 10 months while the Sheraton might close for even longer. The Sheraton hasn't been renovated since it opened 21 years ago and is desperately in need for a fix up. As for the Bustan, it was shut down for a total internal makeover 5 years ago before the last GCC summit in Muscat. It's a government owned hotel and it was originally built specifically for holding the first GCC summit in Oman. I guess the government wants the hotel to go through a makeover every time the GCC summit comes to Oman again.

I don't know why you say that the government isn't giving any permission for new hotels. There are so many hotel projects under development in Muscat. I know of two new hotels coming in Shatti Al Qurum, not to mention the four hotels that will be within The Wave, which by the way should be ready in phases with a maximum time-frame of 6 years, as well as a possible hotel in the Muscat Golf and Country Club, the Wadi Al Qurm project will have a hotel, and The Springs project in Qurm which was announced earlier this month by Bonyan, will also have a hotel.

BTW, The Blue City is a $15 billion project while The Wave is going to cost about $1 billion.

Sleepless In Muscat said...

Muscati:

Thank you for correcting me about the financial figures for the big projects that are currently being developed in the Sultanate. I was worried that I had got it wrong - which I did.

As for why I think that the government has stopped issuing permissions for further hotel development in Oman is because of the huge rumor that is being circulated in the Omani society about the situation with giving out land to Omani nationals of where some officials used their authoritive positions for personal gain financially and moved some people up the ladder by giving them better lands and such.

That's still a rumor to be confirmed, though.

And I know of the other projects that you are talking about but so far nothing has been done about them in reality because of a case of low manpower resources, and building equipment and raw materials availability in the whole GCC. And we all know who that is to blame for in that situation, don't we?

And even if they did start right away on the projects they would not finish in time for at least 3-4 years time in which case we would lose out on the opportunity for financial economic rejuvenation not to mention other environmental impacts these large projects have on the natural habitat of many creatures that come to Oman every season or so.