[Oman-l] Quality tourists

[Perry H]

I am responding to this thread concerning tourism that I have ventured a few
ideas on before, and its nice to hear another voice involved as well as that
of Abdulla's.
I have been thinking about it anyway, and we all say 'yes Oman has tourism
potential'.
But has it?
The question regarding 'tour buses' is one to be thought about. One of the
great things about touring in Oman is often the sheer deserted-ness of the
landscape. I mean, lets face it, it's bleak. and this is what is giving its
beauty. There are no other people there. It makes it special and provides
YOU the traveller (tourist?) with a kind of special relationship with it
because you
just drove miles up some godawful wadi ( I have a Jeep with leaf suspension
and I swear after one of these jaunts I come back an inch or two shorter),
and now you are HERE. you earned the view. Now if you got there and there
was a tourist bus ( or 4wd equivalent, and they do exist) full of  Koreans
scrambling about and taking each others foties, well would it be the same?
(You think I'm being racist here? Well I can only say that i have been on
Bondi beach when one of these buses pulls up and they start taking foties of
us white-feller natives. One of them offered me money once to pose with him.
I just grunted.)
How much of this would it stand up to? Not to mention base and vile topics
like where do they all go to the toilet and even baser, what happens to 'it'
after, in a country where it rains only every few years in a lot of
places.Yes I know its another of those 'infrastructure' issues.
Ok, right, I know, Abdulla is frowning and saying 'I already suggested a
strategy and view, etc' be considered to avoid this sort of thing happening.
Right. I saw that. But do you think that the great and good here could
manage such a strategy? For that matter have they anywhere?
I guess I am drifting around to the notion of the question that Sue Hutton
wanted an answer to - 'what's a quality tourist?'
Abdulla has had a go at discussing the parameters of this category, but he
hasn't ( and I think wisely) actually attempted a definition.
I don't think anyone knows really, I mean how do you work it? Does Oman take
on the aura of some exclusive night club where the ROP stand at the barriers
with an arbitrary description and say 'yes, you're ok, ok you're dressed
well, uh huh, you've got enough money in the bank, Oh, hey you, yes, you,
oooh no you don't
you look like trash to me.'
I know I'm being silly, but there is so much here that is already quite
arbitrary anyway, and we are talking about a sophisticated idea of
'screening'? Hell guys can you suggest any country where they have done
this?
And its worked? The only thing that I am aware of that is similar are the
treks that you can do in The Northern Territory of  Australia where you have
to walk and you have to carry everything, and I mean everything, including
your rubbish for a week or so. Not for mass tourism and its very tightly
controlled.

I don't know if you can control tourism. And I think that's why the promised
multi million dollar tourist villages in Mirbat in the south and A'sawadi
just north of  Muscat  have not really happened even tho they were put
forward several years ago. Oman is Edgy about the whole thing.
Could nyou blame them/it?

An interesting idea that someone ran past me the other day was that Oman had
two directions it could go, in terms of future and /or development: towards
Dubai, or towards Africa.
Comment?




Best Regards

Perry Halicas