IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/toueco/v13y2007i3p333-360.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Yoel Mansfeld & Onn Winckler, 2007. "The Tourism Industry as an Alternative for the GCC Oil-Based Rentier Economies," Tourism Economics, , vol. 13(3), pages 333-360, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:13:y:2007:i:3:p:333-360
    DOI: 10.5367/000000007781497728
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5367/000000007781497728
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5367/000000007781497728?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin Smith, 2004. "Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960–1999," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 232-246, April.
    2. John G.C. Kester & Sandra Carvao, 2004. "International Tourism in the Middle East; And Outbound Tourism from Saudi Arabia," Tourism Economics, , vol. 10(2), pages 220-240, June.
    3. Jane Bryan & Calvin Jones & Max Munday, 2006. "The contribution of tourism to the UK economy: Satellite account perspectives," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(5), pages 493-511, July.
    4. International Monetary Fund, 2003. "United Arab Emirates: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix," IMF Staff Country Reports 2003/067, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Yoel Mansfeld & Onn Winckler, 2004. "Options for Viable Economic Development through Tourism among the Non-Oil Arab Countries: The Egyptian Case," Tourism Economics, , vol. 10(4), pages 365-388, December.
    6. Alessandro Lanza & Anil Markandya & Francesco Pigliaru (ed.), 2005. "The Economics of Tourism and Sustainable Development," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3876, June.
    7. Tarik M. Yousef, 2004. "Development, Growth and Policy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa since 1950," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 91-115, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ramakrishnan Ramanathan & Geetha Subramanian & Dipak Chaudhuri, 2010. "Quantitative Assessment of Stakeholder Perceptions for Tourism Development," Tourism Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 99-116, March.
    2. Nouf Alnafisah, 2025. "The Role of Tourism Development in Promoting Income Equality: A Case Study of GCC Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-26, May.
    3. Michelle Buckley & Adam Hanieh, 2014. "Diversification by Urbanization: Tracing the Property-Finance Nexus in Dubai and the Gulf," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 155-175, January.
    4. Omar Saif & Toufic Mezher & Hassan Arafat, 2014. "Water security in the GCC countries: challenges and opportunities," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 4(4), pages 329-346, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weiffen, Brigitte, 2008. "Liberalizing Autocracies in the Gulf Region? Reform Strategies in the Face of a Cultural-Economic Syndrome," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 2586-2604, December.
    2. Phoebe W. Ishak & Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2022. "Oil price shocks, protest, and the shadow economy: Is there a mitigation effect?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 298-321, July.
    3. Bayuasi Nammei Luki & Abdallah Ali-Nakyea & Hussein Salia & Muntari Mahama, 2023. "The Impact of Oil and Gas Extraction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Ghana," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 12, March.
    4. Olivier Parent & Abdallah Zouache, 2009. "Geographical Features vs. Institutional Factors: New Perspectives on The Growth of Africa and Middle-East," Working Papers 490, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2009.
    5. Adewale Samuel Hassan & Daniel Francois Meyer & Sebastian Kot, 2019. "Effect of Institutional Quality and Wealth from Oil Revenue on Economic Growth in Oil-Exporting Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-14, July.
    6. Mihail N. Diakomihalis, 2012. "Maritime Tourism Tax Revenues in Greece: A New Framework for Collection," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH), Kavala Campus, Greece, vol. 5(1), pages 109-127, April.
    7. Amitrajeet Batabyal, 2007. "A probabilistic analysis of a scheduling problem in the economics of tourism," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(4), pages 1-7.
    8. Rosemary S. Taylor, 2025. "The fiscal effects of natural resource dependency in sub‐Saharan Africa," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(1), pages 384-406, February.
    9. Justine Knebelmann, 2017. "Natural resources' impact on government revenues," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-10, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Andrey Korotayev & Ilya Vaskin & Stanislav Bilyuga & Alina Khokhlova & Anastasia Baltach & Eugeny Ivanov & Kira Meshcherina, 2017. "Economic Development and Sociopolitical Destabilization: A Re-Analysis," HSE Working papers WP BRP 46/PS/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    11. Mr. Ugo Fasano-Filho & Rishi Goyal, 2004. "Emerging Strains in GCC Labor Markets," IMF Working Papers 2004/071, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Thompson, Henry & Toledo, Hugo, 2010. "Labor skills and factor proportions trade in the gulf cooperation council," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 407-411, June.
    13. Fenja Søndergaard Møller, 2019. "Blue blood or true blood: Why are levels of intrastate armed conflict so low in Middle Eastern monarchies?," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(5), pages 517-544, September.
    14. Basedau, Matthias & Lacher, Wolfram, 2006. "A Paradox of Plenty? Rent Distribution and Political Stability in Oil States," GIGA Working Papers 21, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    15. Ajoumessi Houmpe Donal & Tii Njivukuh Nchofoung & Tekam Oumbe Honoré, 2025. "An Empirical Verification of the Political Economy of Innovation: The Role of Leaders’ Background," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 925-948, September.
    16. Turrión Prats, Judith & Duro Moreno, Juan Antonio, 2017. "Seasonality Determinants for the Main Markets in Spain," Working Papers 2072/306517, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    17. von Prollius Michael & Schnabl Gunther, 2016. "Geldpolitik, Arabellion und Flüchtlingskrise: Die sehr lockere Geldpolitik der großen Industrieländer kommt in Form der Flüchtlingskrise auf Europa zurück," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 299-320, December.
    18. Jaya Addin Linando, 2022. "Islam in human resources management and organizational behavior discourses," Asian Management and Business Review, Master of Management, Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics Universitas Islam Indonesia, vol. 2(2), pages 103-120.
    19. Ishak Phoebe W., 2019. "Autocratic Survival Strategies: Does Oil Make a Difference?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 25(2), pages 1-22, May.
    20. Simon Commander, 2017. "Accounting for failures to reform in the Arab world," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(2), pages 351-373, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:13:y:2007:i:3:p:333-360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.