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This book explores Oman's development of a distinctive tourism model that aimed to balance modernisation with tradition. From restoring ancient forts to creating luxury eco-resorts, the Qaboos era witnessed an unprecedented period of development in which Oman's unique Ibadhi heritage and traditional values became both strategic assets for tourism development and sources of tension within broader processes of social and economic transformation.
The author provides a critical analysis of how tourism during the Qaboos era functioned not merely as an instrument of economic diversification but as a multifaceted mechanism for nation-building, elite capital accumulation, and strategic international positioning. Beneath the carefully constructed destination narratives lies a more complex reality of centralised development planning, systematic community marginalisation, and the fundamental contradictions inherent in the commodification of culture and heritage within global tourism markets.
