Given that for most of us women, vacationing with a head to toe cloak isn't our top priority, we haven't often considered Saudi Arabia as a destination. But maybe that's about to change.
The Saudi government is pushing to attract more tourists to the country, aiming for 1.5 million a year, not including the Muslim tourists who come on pilgrimage. Three new training colleges will teach the locals to work as tour guides, airport officials and travel agents.
But it's not "tourism at any cost": The government will tell tourists what we can expect (we're waiting to hear) and that includes somewhat restrictive cultural norms. Probably not a destination for a beach vacation but you might get to run up and down a sand dune fully clothed.
Even though the Middle East already has five low cost carriers in operation, the UAE has decided that it needs another one. In a slightly complicated-sounding business arrangement, Emirates is going to help the government set up a Dubai-based budget airline--which doesn't yet have a name--and one of Emirates' current VPs will then resign from Emirates to run the new, independent-from-Emirates airline.
The new airline will use some single-aisle aircraft (currently rare in the Gulf) and will fly to various destinations less than five hours away from Dubai. Exactly how low cost it'll be is also a bit unclear. All they've said is that "services should be priced on the living and economic conditions to suit their income."
It's all supposed to be up and running within the next year, so watch this space for more info. We're curious about a name: Dub-Air, perhaps, although that makes it sound like a Dubious Airline. We're guessing they'll choose something else.
Call it the curse of The New York Times. We recently talked about how Oman is just now opening its doors to tourism, but with the Times now dubbing this calm gulf state the "anti-Dubai" it looks like it's gonna be pushed into the mainstream. Hey, it happened to Bangladesh.
The lure of craggy canyons, barracuda-filled coral reefs and untainted streets teeming with history is enough to attract plenty of travelers. And no place can stay "undiscovered" forever. But with Oman's selling point being its authenticity, it seems only a matter of time before some entrepreneur offers "authenticity" in a vacation package.
Of course that doesn't mean we wouldn't go. Gotta get there before a Pizza Hut opens up, right?
It must be fun to be a country just opening up to tourism, with all the excitement of tacky souvenirs and tourists getting in your way still to come. That's the position the people of the Middle Eastern country of Oman find themselves in at the moment. The tourism ministry had been aiming to increase visitor spending to 3 percent of the GDP by 2015, but it looks like they'll meet that target by the end of this year instead.
But don't hurry to book your Oman vacation just yet. There are just 9,000 hotel rooms in the country, currently enjoying close to 100 percent occupancy rates, so there's not much room at the inn. The plan is to double the number of rooms nationwide in the next seven years.
Once there's a place to stay, you can count on all kinds of interesting experiences in Oman. There's cave diving for the thrillseekers, traditional souk markets for the shoppers and incredible wadis and desert landscapes for those who like to use a camera. And presumably they'll throw together some tacky souvenirs for us, too.
With just five aircraft to its name so far, Saudi Arabai's first budget airline Nas Air could, until recently, fly you between just a handful of destinations, including Jeddah and Riyadh. But that's okay for an airline that started life as recently as February 25 this year.
Nas Air is actually a subsidiary of the Saudi National Air Services and its expansion was recently announced. They're now going to be flying to 20 destinations across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a fare starting at 49 Saudi Riyals (about $13).
What we like about Nas Air is its overwhelmingly upbeat attitude. We're not sure if the airline is living up to it, but this is what's promised:
We have a fervent zeal to be the best we can be in an advanced 21st century.
Any airline with a fervent zeal these days is more than okay by us.
True low cost carriers in the Middle East are few and far between, but the Kuwait-based Jazeera Airways has been a proper budget carrier since it started operations in October 2005. The funny thing is that despite having cheap fares, the people's oracle reports that it made a $8.7 million profit during 2006--not bad for its first full year.
Jazeera has Kuwait as its main hub but also serves Dubai and Queen Aliah (Jordan) airports extensively. Flights head all around the Middle East and further afield, including destinations in Lebanon, Iran and Morocco.
This week's big promotion is Happy Hour, when tickets are cheaper at certain times; the specials are on seven hours a day, which is quite a happy hour in our book. The Happy Hour wraps November 29, so you'll have to log in fast if you want to nab an especially cheap flight around the Middle East.
You might remember Middle East LCC Air Arabia as the one who used to use South Park characters in their advertising. On the other hand, you might know Air Arabia because of the incredibly long name of its founding father, His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qassimi (ruler of Sharjah) who agreed to set the whole thing up in early 2003.
These days, Air Arabia is going from strength to strength, but it's using candy to do so. Flights now head over most parts of the Middle East, including Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia and then further afield to India, Turkey and Bangladesh. The current wacky advertising features "bite-size holidays", which mean some candies resembling M&Ms are getting a big workout.
The candies must be doing OK for them, because with 34 additional planes on order, Air Arabia only looks like getting bigger. That's definitely sweet.
Is Disney opening up in Bahrain? It totally depends which headlines you read. They're running about 50/50--the world's eighth richest man, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, reckons he's going to invest in a new Disney Bahrain, while the Walt Disney Company says they're not even talking about it.
In fact, the Prince has already gotten involved with Disney, owning a stake in Paris's Euro Disney. The story has gone far enough to suggest that the park would cover 16 million square meters and will open in 2013: but Disney hasn't even started talking about it yet. Right.
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by amandak
