The Tourism Industry as an Alternative for the GCC Oil-Based Rentier Economies

Yoel Mansfeld and Onn Winckler
Additional contact information
Yoel Mansfeld: Department of Geography & Environmental Studies and Center for Tourism, Pilgrimage and Recreation Research, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Onn Winckler: Department of Middle Eastern History, University of Haifa, Israel

Tourism Economics, 2007, vol. 13, issue 3, 333-360

Abstract: During the past four decades, the tourism industry has emerged as one of the leading industries worldwide. This article examines its development in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The article looks at, first, the main factors that led the GCC rulers to select tourism as a major catalyst for enhancing economic development and diversification. Further, it examines the GCC comparative advantages in the global tourism arena and then analyses Dubai's tourism development as an example of both the potential as well as the costs of having a well-established tourism industry in the Arabian Gulf region. Finally, it considers the major barriers to further GCC tourism development. The main conclusion of the article is that, although tourism development may provide a viable economic solution to some of the major socio-economic problems currently facing the GCC oil rental countries, one should not disregard the fundamental barriers and risks to further GCC tourism development, first and foremost in the area of increasing dependence on foreign labour.

Keywords: GCC countries; oil; rentier economy; economic growth; Arabian Gulf tourism; Dubai (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5367/000000007781497728 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:toueco:v:13:y:2007:i:3:p:333-360

DOI: 10.5367/000000007781497728

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Tourism Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().