By Vinod Nair — MUSCAT: April 8 - Oman needs to work on air connectivity and offer more entertainment options for business travellers, as per a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for 2017. It may be also noted that, Oman (6.5), the UAE, and Qatar rank among the 10 safest economies globally, with little terrorism incidence. The report suggests further improvement on tourist facilities such as car rentals and accommodation.
Oman has been ranked 66th among 136 countries by the Travel & Tourism competitiveness for 2017 by WEF recently. Comparatively, Oman scores remain unchanged from the 2015 report (65/141). The country scores high on business environment (5.2), safety and security (6.5), health and hygiene (5.4), price competitiveness (5.5), ICT readiness (5.1) and human resources
and labour market (4.1) on the
scale of 1-7.
Despite reports of increase in the number of air passengers, Oman’s performance on airport infrastructure (3) is below average on the scale of 1-7, which means there is a need for improvement to what extent it can offer sufficient air connectivity for travellers’ access to and from countries, as well as movement within many countries.
Oman is ranked sixth in the list for Middle East and North African, topped by the UAE and Qatar. In this list, Oman scores the most for price competitiveness.
Same applies to the category for business travel and cultural resources, where Oman scores only 1.9 (on the scale of 1-7) in terms of availability of entertainment facilities and conferences. But this score may change with the opening of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre (inaugurated in late 2016) and the opening of the new Muscat International Airport probably later this year.
The report says international arrivals to Middle East continue to grow, reaching 72 million in 2015, compared to 68 million in 2013 and 62 million in 2011, when the region experienced its biggest drop in tourist arrivals.
Better ICT infrastructure, lower prices, improvements in international openness and some progress in nurturing cultural heritage have created better conditions to develop the T&T sector overall, the reported.
“Still, natural and cultural resources remain mostly underexploited and international openness is still limited. To date, security perceptions remain the biggest hurdle for the T&T sector, preventing the region to achieve stronger growth,” the report said.
Perceptions related to terrorism have worsened for at least half of the countries in 2017 compared with two years ago, with the notable exceptions of Lebanon and Egypt, where perceptions have improved but still remain poor (128th and 133rd respectively).
There are large discrepancies in the region, making the Middle East and North Africa the least homogeneous region.
For example, while some countries rank low on security indicators, countries such as Oman, the UAE, and Qatar rank among the 10 safest economies globally, with little terrorism incidence.
Similarly, there are stark differences on business environment, ICT readiness and the quality of infrastructure between the top four countries in the region — the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia that perform very well, and the other 10 less developed economies.
There are also significant variations in country performance across the region vis-à-vis the 2015 edition.
Starting from different levels, Bahrain, Iran, Morocco and Algeria have all improved their security significantly, while Saudi Arabia has registered the largest regional improvement in health and hygiene.
Similarly, while there are countries such as Egypt and Kuwait that have increased T&T sector prioritisation, others, such as Qatar and Yemen that have not. Even within areas where there has been an overall improvement, there are substantial differences in the region. For instance, Egypt, Oman, and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia have upgraded their cultural resources significantly more than the regional average, while Bahrain and Tunisia have proceeded faster towards openness compared to the other countries in the area.
Hopefully the region can continue to improve to be in a better position once stability is restored. The United Arab Emirates, ranked 29th globally, continues to be the most T&T competitive country in the region by far.
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