Mega tourism projects for Yemen
Sustainable tourism development specialist EI-EMC International has revealed plans to roll out three sizeable projects in Yemen.
The Beirut-based company, which has become known for its work developing the eco-tourism destination, Ras Al-Jinz Sea Turtle and Nature Reserve, in Oman, has signed up a similar project in Ras Sharma, located half-way between Salalah in the south of Oman and Moukalah in Yemen.
“We are making it a protected area – a lodge for incoming tourism across an area the size of Ras Al-Jinz (around 120km with 45km of coastline extending for 1km into the sea),” explained EI-EMC International regional manager Pierre Abi Aoun.
“It will be another nesting area for turtles.”
In addition, EI-EMC International, which is a joint venture of a group of companies dedicated to socio-economic development, mainly through sustainable tourism, environmental, cultural heritage and community based projects, is working with the Yemeni government to establish a tourism development company.
This would be similar to Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) – the development arm of the emirate’s tourism board, the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), according to Aoun.
“There is a holding company that manages all the assets of the government and we will manage it; we have a business partner in Yemen and an office in Sanaa.”
The third project will be a development located in Socotra, which is an archipalego of islands and a UNESCO site described by Aoun as “like the Galapagos islands of Yemen”.
“It’s a biodiversity hub and a destination in its own right with a population of 80,000 people,” he explained.
It is accessible by air, served by popular Yemeni low-cost carrier Felix Air, which flies from Sanaa to Moukalah and then to Socotra.
EI-EMC is also making headway in Libya with a project planned for a UNESCO heritage site there, while back in Oman, the company has opened a boutique hotel – Al Sarab - in Jebel Akhdar near Nizwa and will soon open a luxury lodge in the Omani desert near Wahiba.