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Islamic Tourism By Tharwat Abouraya, CTIE
Travel and tourism are expected to grow significantly in several Middle Eastern and Islamic countries, according to new data released at the Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Washington last week. Travel and tourism account for ten percent of total employment in the Middle East (Bahrain, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates), twelve percent in North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia) with predicted annual growth rates of 4.4 to 5.3% over the next decade.
Bahrain and Qatar are among the top ten countries in the world for expected growth in tourism demand in 2006. In Qatar, 23% of total personal spending will be on personal travel this year compared to 17% in Bahrain. Over the next decade, Algeria, Libya and Sudan are expected to register record growth in personal travel.
More than 700 industry leaders gathered in Washington, D.C. this week to discuss strategies for expanding travel worldwide. There was considerable discussion of the Middle East. “The exciting, high-energy new markets of China, India and the Middle East hold promise,” said Marilyn Carlson Nelson, CEO of Carlson Companies in the U.S. Not only are more people traveling from these countries, many are successfully competing successfully for inbound travelers.
The CEO of Kingdom Hotel Investments in Saudi Arabia, Sarmad Zok, noted that the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia have growth rates exceeding the developed world. This presents opportunities for travel and tourism, especially in countries like Libya. “It’s difficult to get visas for Libya,” said Zok, “but it’s changing. We work with governments, which are often cooperative, to get legislation assisting us or providing tax and duty exemptions.”
Libya, along with Sudan, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are on the “top ten” list of countries in expected growth of government travel and tourism expenditures over the next decade.
Nelson at Carlson Companies emphasized the important role governments can play in encouraging travel to these new and expanding destinations. “Governments who will win tomorrow will have a strategy, and will identify barriers to tourism and address them,” says Nelson. “They will partner with the industry leaders to quickly counteract inaccurate media images that discourage visitors. Government and industry together must learn to communicate honestly the extent of the problem and take action to communicate and assure visitor safety.”
Too often, said Zok, “governments in emerging markets are large engines handcuffed by their own bureaucracies.” Instead, these industry leaders called on governments to take responsibility for improving the infrastructure that supports travel, including open skies airline access, technology-enabled safety and security, ease of visa policies, a welcoming investment environment, growing domestic demand, and building conference centers and sporting venues to help lure travelers.
Even before much of that expensive infrastructure exists, however, there is room for emerging markets to grow their travel sector. Tony Wheeler is the founder of Lonely Planet, an American travel information company that calls itself a “worldwide community of travelers which wants to enable everyone to travel with awareness, respect and care.” Wheeler told the conference that “We should remember the young people doing their first solo trip, often opening up markets with little infrastructure because not they don't need air-conditioning, and the money they spend in many destinations goes straight into local pockets. But they have high expectations of features such as Internet access, and they will be more demanding clients of upmarket hotels in future".
Conference discussions of travel issues involving Arab and Islamic countries weren’t as pointed as Huseyin Baraner felt they should be. The President of the European Turkish Tourism Council, Baraner said “we don’t talk about the clash of civilizations, but it doesn’t go away if it’s not discussed.” He said there has been a 40% drop in inbound travel to Turkey this year. He blamed avian flu and the controversy over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, pbuh. “This is leading to a big invisible Islamophobia,” said Baraner. “A major global religion is being misunderstood, but the result is that tourism to Turkey suffers a lot. And the solution cannot come from just single countries. In a globalized world, it needs a global tourism declaration.”
There were many references to the difficulties of getting visas and traveling to the United States generally. “The intimate relationship between the Arab world and the US is being disrupted and distorted,” said Maurice Flanagan, Vice President of The Emirates Group, “and as a result much of that high value tourism is going instead to the UK, Germany and even the Australian Gold Coast.”
Even the President of the US Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue, acknowledged that “because of US immigration laws, if you want to do business with the Arab world, you have to go to London. We have to get over the paranoia and start bringing people to the US.”
“We must have secure borders, but we must open up our borders, we must open up our hearts and open up our tourism,” said Roger Dow, President and CEO of the Travel Industry Association of America. The CEO of Cannery Row Company in California said the biggest problem in the United States is visas. “Millions and millions of people used to come here – not only for tourism but for medical care as well, or for education,” said Ted Balestreri of Cannery Row Company.
The conference heard from both American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “Americans lose when we put up walls and keep people out,” said Chertoff. The next day, Rice acknowledged that “travel fosters understanding, builds respect, creates a subtlety of opinion…is vital for the cause of diplomacy and international understanding in the 21st century.”
Rice insisted that the United States is responding to foreign citizen concerns about delays in getting visas. She said there are 515 more American consular positions since September 2001 and 97% of approved travelers receive their visas in a day or two. The United States is introducing a pilot model airport program to ease arrivals for foreign travelers. There is also a new Business Visa Center to make it easier for foreign employers and foreign partners of American companies to get visas to do legitimate business in the United States (http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_2664.html).
American Ambassador Karen Hughes also stressed the vital importance of travel which allows Americans to meet people and “step outside their comfort zones, so they come to celebrate differences and diversity and recognize we have a lot more in common as members of the human race than they expected before they traveled.”
Tharwat Abouraya is President of Travel Business CPR, www.travelbusinesscpr.com
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