With World Cup 2022 in Doha equally benefiting the Sultanate of Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as partner countries, long-term partnership unified policies are required to boost the tourist sector and share its benefits among GCC states.
In this regard, the concerned authorities are currently in talks to launch a ‘Schengen-style’ entry system, which will facilitate entry into all partner countries with one visa, said Fatima al Sairafi, Minister of Tourism, Kingdom of Bahrain.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Meet, Al Sairafi said, “We have a huge opportunity, the effort is in how to unify all the countries in the GCC. Bahrain had 9.9 million visitors in 2022. One key initiative that we started in 2022 was to co-promote Bahrain as a unified destination with the GCC. If all the GCC countries unified their efforts in promotion, the opportunities would be incredible.”
Of late, the GCC countries have simplified the visa procedures for GCC residents who can avail of Visa on Arrival or E-visa.
According to the Arab Gulf Centre for Studies and Research (CSRGulf), all Gulf countries benefited immensely from the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022, the first to be hosted in the Middle East and the Arab world.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is expected to introduce a unified visa that would allow tourists to visit all six member countries, which are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman.
It may be noted that the authorities in the GCC have been working on a unified tourist visa to promote tourism in the region, including the economic and technical viability of such a visa, which would allow a tourist to use the visa issued in one GCC nation to visit all the others.
According to a source in the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI), such a system is a need of the hour because tourism cannot be promoted in isolation. “It is in the largest interest to share the economic benefits with member countries. There is no need for tourists to spend separately for visas when each of these countries is connected by land or within a few minutes of flight times.”
He hoped that there will be some real progress because all countries have equally simplified their visa process in recent times making the population in these countries to travel freely and even at short notice.
Abdullah al Saleh, the UAE Minister of Economy, said, “GCC countries believe that if they provide a good experience for visitors especially long-distance visitors coming to this region, instead of visiting one country, there will be a program to maximize their visits to more than one country in the region. The visitors will be happier by visiting several countries without restrictions, facilitating cross borders travel, and having unified one package to visit different countries in GCC.”
He said a unified GCC tourism strategy has been devised to increase the contribution of the sector to the GCC GDP, bolster the employment of nationals, and boost competitiveness.
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