A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF QATAR'S TOURISM COMPETITIVENESS WITH EGYPT, SAUDI ARABIA, THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES AND TURKEY

Abstract

Purpose- Qatar has placed its tourism sector as a focal sector in its economic diversification strategy. The country aims to develop diverse tourism products, ranging from cultural, urban, and nature tourism to education. Qatar plans to invest $45 billion in the tourism sector to increase international tourist numbers to seven million per annum by 2030 (Gulf Business, 2014). Given these significant tourism investments, it is unquestionable that the country reaps commensurate long-term benefits in terms of the growth of its tourism sector and possible ripple effects in other sectors of the economy. However, Morakabati et al. (2014) argued that the country's success in attracting tourists was limited due to several reasons. First, it lacks an appealing destination image. Second, civil liberty and political stability in the region are not well acknowledged by potential tourists and third, the country lacks strong promotions of religious and cultural traditions. This current research paper intends to conduct a comparative analysis of Qatar's tourism competitiveness with its strong rivals, namely the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The paper's main objective is to identify Qatar's strengths and weaknesses relative to the competing destinations based on a SWOT analysis. Methodology- The study employs the Global Competitiveness Ranking from Euromonitor and various tourism data sources from the World Bank and Google. It conducts a comparative analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) associated with Qatar's tourism to its competing destinations. Findings- The analysis reveals that the average daily cost of living in Qatar is USD160, which is considerably high compared to Saudi Arabia (USD31), Egypt (USD28) and Turkey (USD98). Even though Qatar's average daily cost is lower than the United Arab Emirates (USD198), the latter destination offers more variety of tourism products than Qatar. Furthermore, the competing nations have invested more resources in tourism development than Qatar. For instance, Qatar's capital investment in travel and tourism services in 2019 was the lowest (USD2.05billion), compared to the United Arab Emirates (USD8.2billion), Saudi Arabia (USD26.87billion), Turkey (USD21.31billion) and Egypt (USD16.2billion). Qatar performed the best in health and financial system among its competitors in terms of global competitiveness ranking. Conclusion- Based upon the analysis, it can be concluded that Qatar has lost its price competitiveness to its neighboring countries. Therefore, the Qatari government should focus on creating opportunities for those who can afford to buy a property and live in Qatar as second-home residents.

Keywords

• Comparative analysis
• global competitiveness index
• inbound tourism
• tourism competitiveness
• Qatar

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