Oman's future vision

Roundtable participants discussed Oman marketing issues.

Oman-based hospitality and tourism experts met at The Chedi Muscat to discuss the destination’s past, present and future with Arabian Travel News.

ATN: How has Oman developed as a tourism destination in the last decade?
Koenig: It became more serious and professional as of September 2004 when a Ministry of Tourism was officially founded in Muscat. So it’s been five-and-a-half years and it is pretty amazing what has been achieved during that time.

The Ministry proceeded to appoint oversees representation to help promote Oman as a destination and the feeder markets that were discovered were from the European sector plus Australia.

The Ministry of Tourism doesn’t want Oman to become a backpackers’ destination. We are looking at a clear clientele of the medium- to high-income range that will appreciate the beauty of the country, the history and the culture that comes with it.

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I think it’s wonderful that Oman doesn’t have 358 five-star hotels and let’s hope it never happens. We don’t have the skyline of other destinations because of the wonderful topography that we have. But there is a distinct 2020 plan that included the diversification away from oil and one big part of that was to encourage tourism and slowly this has been developed and improved.

Norman: Oman has always positioned itself as an authentic and unique destination. That’s what attracts people to Oman — the nature, culture and history, not something new and artificial.

ATN: Have there been challenges?
Koenig: There were years when all of us — the Al Bustan, the Grand Hyatt etc — were full and we had to ask how we could improve. This is still the case in terms of our summer months, which tend to be a struggle — there is no doubt about it, more so for the resort hotels than the corporate hotels.

There is this fixation in the public’s mind that you cannot go to Oman in the summer because it’s 55 degrees and it is difficult to eradicate this thought. It will be 55 degrees, but in Wahiba Sands and noone in their right minds will go there in the summer.

But we are on the coastline with a lovely breeze that is usually stronger in the summer than the winter so there is no reason not to come here.

Everything is air conditioned and you can still go to Jebel Shams stood at 3000 metres and it will be 25 degrees.

This will be a phenomenon that we will have to struggle with for a long time. We need to educate the public and travel trade that ‘yes, you can come here in the summer’.

Norman: Having said that, The Ministry of Tourism and Oman Air have been giving a lot of support to the industry to make sure that we can keep on communicating that.

Yes, as Lore says, the destination is focused on the middle-to high-end income level audience, but still you can get even better value for money during the summer months and there are plenty of cooler places. However, our European guests do like the heat.

Draper: Exactly, Europeans, if you go on holiday you go to the sun.

Jaffer: Salalah is experiencing growth during the summer period, which is typically off-peak here. A lot of regional tourism is actually boosting business to Salalah because of such things as Swine Flu and people trying to avoid travelling to other parts of the world.