Tracking Muslim tourism trends

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Tags: BEL, discovery, Islamic issues, summer-2010, tourism

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Muslim countries are caught between developing their tourism industries and making sure their culture is not eroded in the process, according to a UQ researcher.

Fear of cultural erosion is leading the governments of some Muslim countries to pick and choose the tourists they target in their marketing, School of Tourism senior lecturer Dr Noel Scott said.

Dr Scott said this also reinforced the need for tourists to ensure they understood the nature of Islamic law and respected customs.

The comments follow the release of a paper Dr Scott wrote with Hassan Saad Sanad and Ayman Mounier Kassem from Minia University in Egypt.

“Tourism is a focus for change in society and I suspect tourism is a leading sector that is being used in Muslim countries to explore issues of how society should develop,” Dr Scott said.

Tourists were exposing people in Muslim countries to different values and beliefs because tourism was “a microcosm of everyday life”.

But western tourists needed to do their homework because acceptable behaviour differed from one country to the next.

“Saudi Arabia does not want western tourists to come along and offend local people. They want economic development from tourism, but they are not prepared to compromise their principles to have it,” he said.

By Erik de Wit

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