Writing the revision for the Oman Guide for Bradt in 2016 – deciding which unique experiences could be included — and which should not — turned out to be a difficult area. I needed not only to focus on finishing the text & maps but also to change my viewpoint of Oman’s tourism.
Previously, for my tour company, a visit to a museum could be pre-planned as part of a basic tour, a special visit to a honey-bee keeper could be agreed within days; a typical meal with a local family set up with perhaps a week’s organisation.
A visit to something like Jalali Fort (before 2001) might take many months of discussion with the office for Sultan Qaboos.
But essentially all the visits required local knowledge and, in some cases, personal contacts — neither of which a tourist would have..
From the start of my working life in retail, an obvious decision was not to display or advertise items that were not available for sale. My dilemma as an author – should visits or experiences in Oman be included if it would not be possible to see them as an independently travelling visitor!? Or should they be included if an Omani tour operator might know about them and, on request, go the extra mile to include them?
Seeing a country only through the window of a vehicle has limited appeal for today’s tourists.
In many countries there is a trend towards experiencing authentic local lifestyles at first hand. Customs and culture are an essential and growing part of travel experiences.
There is also an important aspect, tourists can and should provide income for the local inhabitants. In Oman, a visitor admires the local date oasis – which has been created over the centuries at considerable cost and effort out of barren lands. However, the local population receives no benefit at all from the visitor, and often unfortunately receives only the litter left behind.
The tourist also comes with a dress code, which may be at odds with the local population’s expectations – its a complicated dilemma – often involving visitors from massive urban cities – into remote rural settlements. To include or not to include – that indeed is the question.
In Britain, these might include a coracle-making weekend in Wales, Harris Tweed weaving in Stornoway, and calligraphy & illumination, with the expert, at the British Library. Visits to local farms are possible in so many places that it is an expected option for tourists. Online craft information (such as the new https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/) in many countries is readily available, and so a tourist can organise it easily. In Britain great, very traditional events, such as the Henley Royal Regatta in England, the National Eisteddfod of Wales or the Edinburgh Festival, are planned and promoted years in advance and happen like clockwork by place and time. Though these are at a scale quite different from Oman – they are events that can be relied on years in advance.
So my viewpoint needed changing for this Oman Travel Guide whose key readers were travelling independently. I switched from using my own experience and personal contacts as a means to see local events, to looking at tourism more from a tourist’s viewpoint and what a tourist could plan themselves in Oman, without difficulty.
A tourist would, to an extent, rely on the guidebook as Oman’s events do not usually have many months of firm details for date or place. For example, even the actual date for regular religious national holidays is announced only a few days in advance (many are lunar-based, but can still be scientifically anticipated). Smaller, to use a naturalist’s word, ‘Endemic’ experiences are often simply word of mouth. So including suggestions in the book, irrespective of their appeal, that might not be found or available would be frustrating for the visitor.
In the event, within the Oman Guide for Bradt – there are experiences like the Bull contest in Barka
which could be included as the location was specific and time was easy to explain. Others such as camel racing could be mentioned, but with the lack of a schedule planned years in advance, it was impossible to direct a tourist to a location for the once or twice a year race held there on different dates each year.
A Bradt guide itself takes around a year to compile (facts checked, written and edited – that’s me and a remote editor); add in the book interior design & typesetting by somebody else, printing by an overseas company so needing shipping and its “shelf-life” that might be 2 or 3 years – it’s clear that it might be purchased 5 years after a chapter was written.
More frustrating was the situation with local crafts as, even with fixed locations like the pottery in Bahla or Sidab ladies, opening hours were not guaranteed and usually depended on an individual’s decision to be at work. There is also the consideration that an experience in a guidebook might create issues for the provider in terms of visitor numbers, communication problems and therefore be unrewarding for the craftsperson.
The guidebook, therefore, is unfortunately sparse on endemic experiences and includes an emphasis on historic buildings and outdoor Oman which although many are special they do not have the uniqueness a person or craft might have.
I do hope that as well as the future development of mega projects such as Mina Sultan Qaboos (the planned new hotel hub and port redevelopment), attention to a more uniquely endemic Omani experience will be made by the Oman government.
These perhaps one day may even include officially approving Airbnb (currently it’s done with no government sanction and therefore any Airbnb accommodation can be closed instantly) or even a locally branded option (it may be that regulation will change re this). Airbnb is after all, at its heart, simply an online booking system for a version of Britain’s very traditional well established Bed & Breakfast family home accommodation. I feel that these endemic experiences have the potential to create a lasting & unique impression on visitors and, more importantly, provide a good income to local people.
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