Planning for a Qatar without Oil: Tourism and Economic Diversification, a battle of perceptions.

Abstract

Qatar has developed a long-term strategy to plan for a time when the country will not be dependent upon its oil and gas reserves. The strategy focuses on export diversification, largely through the development of service industries, including finance, knowledge-based sectors and tourism. This may be seen as a sensible option given the availability of capital and the paucity of non-energy resources. To date the success in attracting leisure tourists has been limited. The country faces a number of challenges with its economic diversification strategy through tourism, including the task of creating a strong destination image and assuring personal safety, civil liberty and political stability in a region not noted for these characteristics. It also needs to offer a product that is sensitive to the religious and cultural traditions of the host population whilst appealing to international tourists. This paper looks at diversification as a development strategy, the rationale for Qatar’s diversification strategy, the risk perceptions and appeal of Qatar as a holiday destination and then empirically tests whether Qatar fits into a typology of evoked, inert or inept sets of destinations. The results show that there is strong support for the link between export diversification and economic growth but while seen as a relatively safe destination, Qatar currently lacks appeal and does not fall into the evoked set of destinations for UK visitors.