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Tourism Development in the GCC States

Reconciling Economic Growth, Conservation and Sustainable Development

  • Book
  • Jul 2025

Overview

Editors:
  1. Andy Spiess

    1. GCC Network for Drylands Research, Hamburg, Germany

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  2. Faisal Al-Mubarak

    1. Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

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  3. Alan S. Weber

    1. Premedical, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

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  • Develops new strategies to avoid past errors and proposes remedial actions to currently unsustainable tourism development pathways

  • Investigates the effect of unsustainable rapid development and its detrimental environmental, socio-cultural and security impacts

  • Examines the net social benefit of tourism development, to encapsulate economic, social and environmental benefits and costs, and asks whether benefits outweigh costs overall

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Keywords

About this book

Tourism is one of the world's largest as well as fastest growing industries and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states are expected to be increasingly important engines of such growth, and tourism promotion is often considered an integral element of their economic strategies. The sector is generally publicized as a vital source of employment, revenue, foreign exchange benefits, public infrastructure, diversification and inducement in reviving national pride. Nevertheless tourism as a catalyst for economic development can be a controversial device. While certain short term economic benefits clearly arise from an expanding tourism industry in the Gulf economies, its unsustainable rapid development has had detrimental environmental, socio-cultural and security impacts, particularly because this industry is dependent on and a major user of natural resources and habitually collides with the values, skills, and aspirations of GCC nationals. This book develops new strategies to avoid past errors and proposes remedial actions to those currently unsustainable development pathways. In consideration of the fact that all types of tourism will eventually have a negative impact on the fragile environments of the GCC, we will take a closer look at the net social benefit of tourism development, to encapsulate economic, social and environmental benefits and costs, and ask whether benefits outweigh costs overall. Such an approach will include nonmonetary values and will allow the necessary trade-offs across economic, social and environmental domains. Concurrently, research indicates that in their aggressive pursuit of tourism development, Gulf governments either failed to address or deliberately ignored the critical question of local employment, ergo it is also crucial to assess the status quo, discuss why tourism has or has not been able to succeed with the set policy goals and especially elaborate the political rationale behind these deficiencies.

Editors and Affiliations

  • GCC Network for Drylands Research, Hamburg, Germany

    Andy Spiess

  • Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Faisal Al-Mubarak

  • Premedical, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

    Alan S. Weber

About the editors

Andy Spiess is the founder president of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Network for Drylands Research and Development (NDRD), a regional scientific organization with the core objective to establish a science-policy interface to increase response capacity and mitigate environmental change in the Arab Gulf states. Besides this honorary position, Andy’s research in pursuit of a cumulative habilitation (full professorship in Germany) is analyzing the state of human security in the GCC member states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) from multiple perspectives and in particular on the future implications of the environment-security nexus. This transdisciplinary approach is based on the hypothesis that declining ecosystem services will act as a driver of social destabilization and already prevailing threats to security will be further amplified. While currently concentrating on a second monograph evaluating the concept of tourism development through the lens of human security in Saudi Arabia, Andy has authored numerous scholarly articles, has a long record of voluntary academic service and serves as a reviewer in several peer-reviewed journals.

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