Kuwait reaching out for tourists

Kuwait’s Minister of Information has called for the creation of an authority to oversee tourism to the small but wealthy Gulf state.

Kuwait’s Minister of Information has called for the creation of an authority to oversee tourism to the small but wealthy Gulf state. The proposal comes at a time when tourism to the Middle East is suffering, with even countries with well-established tourism sectors, like Jordan, seeing the number of visitors declining.

Revamping the country’s tourism sector could be a part of the government’s broader policy to diversify the state’s economy, Salman Sabah Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah, Minister for Information, said. Kuwait, historically a trading port, is now heavily oil-rich, controlling an estimated 10% of the world’s petroleum reserves. Revenues from the industry accounts for nearly half of the country’s GDP and for almost all of the government’s income.

Previous attempts at diversification of the economy have met with little success, due partly to political disagreements between the National Assembly and the executive branch of the government.

Currently all tourism affairs are handled by the Ministry of Information as there is no dedicated Ministry for Tourism, Saqer Al-Bader, a representative for the Touristic Enterprises Company, told The Media Line.

The intention is for this to change in the near future with the creation of an authority working to enhance tourism in Kuwait, Majda Bahani, director of Tourism at the Ministry of Information, told The Media Line. It is hoped that the agency, although not a full ministry, will encourage tourists to visit cultural and historical sites.

“Arab people do not visit heritage sites like museums, not too much. They visit restaurants and shopping malls instead,” Bahani said.

Most tourist attractions in the country are located in Kuwait City. The Lonely Planet travel website describes the capital as having, “excellent museums, a corniche of combed beaches and lively restaurants, malls and souqs,” but admitted that there was not much to see in the rest of the country.

Kuwait is sandwiched between the much larger states of Iraq, to its north, and Saudi Arabia, to the south. Its two neighbors have widely different tourism situations. Iraq, ravaged by the Islamic State (ISIS) in the last eighteen months, has few visitors, with those that do travel there mostly congregating in the northern Kurdish autonomous region. Saudi Arabia on the other hand receives millions of visitors annually, the majority for the haj, or religious pilgrimage, with 15 million visitors recorded in 2014.

This makes Saudi Arabia the most visited country in the Middle East, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt coming in respectively in second and third places, both receiving a little over 9 million visitors. By comparison Kuwait hosted just 300,000 visitors in 2012. The UAE, especially Dubai, is a model of tourism that could most suit Kuwait. Luxury hotels and restaurants which cater to business travelers might be a tourism option for the country as it lacks the historical sites that countries like Egypt, Jordan and Syria have.

Tourism across the region has been damaged by the aftershocks of pro-democracy rallies that spread throughout the Arab world in 2011. What was at first known as the Arab Spring has led to little democratic development but has caused a surge in violence in the Middle East. Predictably this has hurt tourism, even in areas not directly affected by the turmoil.

Countries which are dependent on tourism, Jordan and to a lesser extent Egypt, have been hurt worse than others. Visitors to Petra, Jordan’s famous World Heritage site, have been reduced by up to 60% the country’s Minister for Tourism reported earlier in the year.

Tiny Kuwait in between Saudi Arabia and Iraq finds it difficult not to be affected by its larger neighbors. But this is not all bad. The majority of tourists into Kuwait actually come from Saudi Arabia, Bahani said, with the remainder generally being European. Many Kuwaitis also still travel into Iraq for various reasons, she added. As for the negative impact from ISIS’s rise to statehood next door, Bahani played down the effect, saying, “It’s not so much of a problem.”

Kuwait has remained relatively stable during the upheavals of the last four years with a suicide bombing at a mosque, in which 27 people were killed earlier this year, being the notable exception.

The little state of just three and a half million people is often presented as a good introduction into the colorful world of Arab dessert kingdoms. A number of travel guides report Kuwait, pleasantly located on the warm waters of the Arabian coast, as safe, relaxed and full of desert hospitality. Less conservative than Saudi Arabia next door, Kuwait could appeal to new tourists and business people. The opening of a tourism authority might be what the emirate needs to push this image.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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