Latest Kuwait News
Tourism sector lacks governmental support, say travel agents
Lack of coherent tourism strategy by Kuwaiti government has led the Kuwait tourism sector into void, commented an executive from one of the largest travel management company in the Middle East.
The Chairman of Kuwait-based hotelier, Action Hotels, HE Sheikh Mubarak Al Sabah, said that Kuwait is seeing only “limited tourism”, mainly due to lack of promotion and infrastructural support by the government.
Being a liberal country, equivalent to any other GCC state, Kuwait is still not promoted. Moreover, lack of infrastructure fails to draw in tourists, he pointed out.
Even the Regional Travel Manager at Kanoo Travel, the largest travel management company in the Middle East, Sunil D’souza, agreed that “lack of governmental interest has dragged tourism into oblivion”.
According to D’souza, it is time that Kuwait put into action a serious plan to develop the tourism sector and attract more international visitors.
About five years ago, Kuwait government had tried to boost its fledgling tourism sector by launching a 20-year plan, together with World Tourism Organization. It had aimed to develop new resorts and hotels with more than 3000 rooms forecasted to enter the market in the next five years.
While the Kuwai ttourism has not traditionally been considered to be a strategic development priority by the Government of Kuwait, there have been positive indications of change, said Amr Abdel Ghaffar, Regional Director for Middle East at the UNWTO.
This includes establishment of a General Tourism Authority under the umbrella of Ministry of Commerce and Industry, to devise a comprehensive strategy and action plan for sustainable development and promotion of the sector.
But, the sector’s performance has been poor and the results are yet to get materialized. Travel and tourism contributes to only 3.7percent of total GDP of Kuwait.
It is also likely that tourism-related employment will drop from 71,000 jobs in 2009 to 65,000 in 2019. The data showed that in 2009 more than $400mn was contributed by incoming tourists to the Kuwait economy.
This is unlikely to change in near future, as there are more than 470 active hotel projects in the Gulf. But, off this only 27 have been planned in Kuwait, in comparison to 258 in UAE, 83 in Saudi Arabia and 35 in Bahrain.
Social Bookmarking
Read more news
> Waiting list for housing in Kuwait touches record numbers
> Avenues Mall turning into top shopping and leisure destination
> 360 Mall wins coveted ICSC Gold Award
> Interior Ministry plans granting citizenship to eligible illegal residents
> Labour Ministry working on self-sponsorship law for expatriates
> Subbiya - Second City in Kuwait
> Kuwait may grant citizenship to 34,000 illegal residents
> Work permit, transfer applications suspended temporarily
> More than 50 Kuwaiti firms participate in Career Fair 2011
> e-gate website offers e-governmental services round-the-clock