Oman’s salt flats poised for wellness tourism

Long before ‘wellness tourism’ became an industry buzzword, Oman had its own name for liquid gold. At Khoor Al Melh in Qurayat, locals have long called the shimmering white flats ‘White Gold’ - and further south, the salt pans of Shannah stretch along the coast as another of Oman’s quieter natural treasures.
These sabkhas have sat largely unnoticed by the tourism industry, valued mostly for their mineral content and their role in a growing salt trade. However, 4,500 kilometres away, a German spa town has spent two centuries proving that landscapes like these can be turned into something far more valuable than salt alone.

The German spa town of Bad Nauheim was already selling the idea that salt, mineral water and sea air could heal the heart, decades before ‘wellness tourism’ entered the vocabulary. Now, as Oman weighs how to turn its own coastal salt flats into a pillar of its tourism economy, the town that calls itself ‘Germany’s Health City’ believes it may have found its next chapter - on the shores of the Gulf.
The idea surfaced at a recent GNTB Brand Summit, where Harald Hock, Managing Director of Bad Nauheim Stadtmarketing und Tourismus GmbH and General Manager of the Dolce by Wyndham Bad Nauheim, laid out a case for why Oman is uniquely positioned to replicate a model his town has spent two centuries perfecting.

Bad Nauheim’s credentials are hard to dispute: 14 hospitals and specialist clinics, nine natural healing springs, and the recently opened Townal Spa, built around a natural saline source. At its heart are the 18th-century Gradierbauten - towering timber ‘graduation walls’ originally used for salt extraction, now repurposed as open-air inhalation structures where brine trickles over blackthorn brushwood, releasing a mineral-rich mist said to benefit heart and lung health.
“What we have created in Bad Nauheim is unique - and at the same time transferable,’ Hock said. “This interplay of nature, medicine, rehabilitation, and hospitality - that is our recipe for success.”

Harald is careful not to overstate his familiarity with Oman’s geography - he has visited Muscat and the Hajar Mountains, and knows the wider Gulf through his brother’s decades working in Abu Dhabi’s oil sector.
He points to a striking structural parallel: Oman’s extensive coastal salt flats, or sabkhas, from Khoor Al Melh’s White Gold in Qurayat to the pans of Shannah, already studied for their mineral content, sit alongside a billion-dollar national push to expand the salt industry using sustainable evaporation technology. The country produced roughly 40,000 tonnes of salt in 2025 alone.

The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism has said it is exploring wellness-focused tourism experiences, citing the therapeutic value of sea air, while Oman Vision 2040 explicitly favours high-value, low-impact tourism over mass arrivals - backed by a target of 12 million visitors.
Concrete projects are already emerging: a luxury resort taking shape on Musandam, a second Santani wellness retreat planned for Dhofar’s beaches, and the Al Duqm coastal zone being designed around health, wellness and ecotourism - all part of a broader map of coastal assets that could one day include sites like Qurayat’s salt flats and Shannah’s pans.

“The GCC medical tourism market is growing at over 10 per cent annually and is expected to reach nearly $890 million by 2032,” Harald noted, adding that wellness tourism is expanding even faster, at close to 17 per cent a year. “The greatest investment opportunities lie in integrated health cities that bring together prevention, rehabilitation, wellness, and tourism in a holistic approach.”
Bad Nauheim also has a longer history with the Arab world than many might expect: the Saudi national football team based itself there during the 2006 World Cup, and several of its clinics maintain dedicated departments for Arab patients, built on years of experience.

For now, Harald stresses that no formal discussions have taken place with the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism, the Ministry of Health or the German Embassy in Muscat.
“I see in Oman’s mineral-rich coastal landscapes - from Qurayat to Shannah and beyond - and its Vision 2040 the perfect foundation for a new generation of health destinations,” Harald said. “In Bad Nauheim, we have proven over centuries that natural brine is far more than a raw material - it is the foundation of a holistic health ecosystem. We are happy to share this knowledge.”

Pictures by BNST GmbH/Sven Bierwirt, Julia Hartmann, Kerstin Schneekloth, Sprudelhof Therme, Martina Exeler