proposed - Horizon newsletter: The Effect of Tourism on Oman

Below is the latest article that is used as a foreword in the Horizon newsletter for the Sultan Qaboos University. Do read it up and let me know what you think about the topic and the strength of the discussion.

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The Effect of Tourism on Oman:

Tourism has started to boom in the country. Tourists are flocking into the Sultanate of Oman more than ever in any time period. And what's more, is that our country is now a hotspot for many European and American travelers.

This is all due to the relaxation of visa norms in Oman by the government and their representative authorities. But it is also due to the heavy advertising campaign that the Ministry of Tourism, here in Oman, is implementing to let people know that Oman has opened up its doors to the world for everyone to enjoy a lovely vacation and a laidback rest in one of the safest cities of the world.

However, this strategy has its disadvantages that don't go undetected.

Some of these disadvantages are the impact it has on the society; this is through opening up the country's population to a culture shock that many are not ready for, even with all the rules and regulations that are put into effect.

Tourism may well provide income for the country and allow it to diversify its portfolio but its evident and ultimate task is to help push the economy forward through many infrastructure projects that are much needed here in Oman but it has also pushed the economy to make sure it can better receive the next few thousand of tourists by expanding the different roads networks, easing up traffic, preparing the Seeb International Airport for a full renovation and the most obvious of them all; expansion of the real estate industry all over Muscat, in specific, and Oman in general.

The Sultanate had this approach coming, one way or another, as it was inevitable. Nothing could have stopped from ever happening because of the state our economy is in now and how the Sultanate of Oman has become so dependent on the one natural resource that has been with it for the past 36 years since the renaissance.

The impact of tourism does not stop at the point of physical change but it also comes with changing of the culture and with it, change of the surrounding environment. It is to that day that we must heed our ears to the winds of change and perhaps, one day, answer it back.

We are slowly progressing, thankfully. And it is to that slow progress that we should thank our lucky stars because had it been the other way we would have plunged ourselves into a mistake that we would always regret for the rest of our lives.

We not be a developed country – but we are a proud nation.