Routledge handbook on tourism in the Middle East and North Africa

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON TOURISM

IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND

NORTH AFRICA

The Routledge Handbook on Tourism in the Middle East and North Africa examines the importance

of tourism as a historical, economic, social, environmental, religious and political force in the

Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It highlights the ecological and resource challenges

related to water, desert environments, climate change and oil. It provides an in-depth analysis

of the geopolitical conditions that have long determined the patterns of tourism demand and

supply throughout the region and how these play out in the everyday lives of residents and

destinations as they attempt to grow tourism or ignore it entirely.

While cultural heritage remains the primary tourism asset for the region as a whole, many new

types of tourisms are emerging, especially in the Arabian Gulf region, where hyper-development

is closely associated with the increasingly prominent role of luxury real estate and shopping,

retail, medical tourism, cruises and transit tourism. The growing phenomenon of an expatriate

workforce, and how its segregation from the citizenry creates a dual socio-economic system

in several countries, is unmatched by other regions of the world. Many indigenous people of

MENA keep themselves apart from other dominant groups in the region, although these social

boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as tourism, being one socio-economic force for

change, has inspired many nomadic peoples to settle into towns and villages and rely more on

tourists for their livelihoods. All of these issues and more shape the foundations of this book.

This Handbook is the first of its kind to examine tourism from a broad regional and inclusive

perspective, surveying a broad range of social, cultural, heritage, ecological and political matters

in a single volume. With a wide range of contributors, many of whom are natives of the Middle

East and North Africa, this Handbook is a vital resource for students and scholars interested in

Tourism, Middle East Studies and Geography.

Dallen J.  Timothy is Professor of Community Resources and Development and Senior

Sustainability Scientist at Arizona State University. He also holds visiting professorships and

research associateships in China, Spain and South Africa. His research interests include cultural

heritage-based tourism, religious tourism, peripheral regions, heritage cuisines and geopolitics.

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK

ON TOURISM IN THE

MIDDLE EAST AND

NORTH AFRICA

Edited by Dallen J. Timothy

iv

First published 2019

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Dallen J. Timothy; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Dallen J. Timothy to be identified as the author of the editorial material,

and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance

with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised

in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or

hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,

and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Timothy, Dallen J., editor.

Title: Routledge handbook on tourism in the Middle East

and North Africa / edited by Dallen J. Timothy.

Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2019] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018035929 (print) | LCCN 2018039682 (ebook) |

ISBN 9781315624525 (master) | ISBN 9781317229247 (Adobe Reader) |

ISBN 9781317229230 (Epub) | ISBN 9781317229223 (Mobipocket) |

ISBN 9781138651920 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315624525 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Tourism–Middle East. | Tourism–Africa, North.

Classification: LCC G155.M66 (ebook) |

LCC G155.M66 R68 2019 (print) | DDC 338.4/79156–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035929

ISBN: 9781138651920 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781315624525 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Out of House Publishing

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CONTENTS

List of figures ix

List of tables x

Notes on contributors xi

PART I

The space and place of MENA 1

1 Introduction: Understanding the Middle East and North Africa 3

Dallen J. Timothy

2 The physical geography of the Middle East in the Anthropocene 11

C. Michael Hall

3 The Middle East and North Africa: A dynamic cultural realm 24

Dallen J. Timothy

4 Tourism trends and patterns in MENA: A resource perspective 36

Dallen J. Timothy

PART II

Heritage, culture and urban space 55

5 Intangible heritage and cultural protection in the Middle East 57

Mairna H. Mustafa

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Contents

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6 Deciphering ‘Arab hospitality’: Identifying key characteristics

and concerns 71

Marcus L. Stephenson and Nazia Ali

7 Tourism and indigenous communities: Linking reterritorialisation and

decolonisation in North Africa 83

Christine N. Buzinde

8 Urban heritage in the Middle East: Heritage, tourism and the

shaping of new identities 95

Aylin Orbaşlı

PART III

Religion and tourism 107

9 Religion, pilgrimage and tourism in the Middle East 109

Daniel H. Olsen

10 Islamic tourism in the Middle East 125

Hamira Zamani-Farahani, Michele Carboni, Carlo Perelli and

Neda Torabi Farsani

11 Contemporary Jewish tourism: Pilgrimage, religious heritage and

educational tourism 137

Noga Collins-Kreiner

12 Christian tourism in the Middle East: Holy Land and Mediterranean

perspectives 147

Dallen J. Timothy and Amos S. Ron

PART IV

Natural and environmental challenges 161

13 MENA as a critical meeting point between tourism and

water resources 163

Nurit Kliot

14 Oil in the Middle East: A critical resource for tourism 178

Susanne Becken and Harald A. Friedl

15 Desert landscapes and tourism in the Middle East and North Africa 189

Alan S. Weber

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Contents

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16 Tourism and climate change in the Middle East 199

C. Michael Hall

PART V

Tourism and geopolitics 211

17 Tourism as a tool for colonisation, segregation, displacement and

dispossession: The case of East Jerusalem, Palestine 213

Rami K. Isaac

18 Tourism and conflict in the Middle East 231

Richard W. Butler

19 Image repair strategies adopted by MENA national tourism boards

during and following crises 241

Eli Avraham

PART VI

Transportation 257

20 Cruise tourism in the Middle East 259

Magdalena Karolak

21 Local transportation and tourism in the MENA region 272

Ammar O. Abulibdeh

22 Air route development and transit tourism in the Middle East 290

Bojana Spasojevic and Gui Lohmann

PART VII

Contemporary trends 307

23 Halal tourism: A growing market on a global stage 309

Asad Mohsin and Chris Ryan

24 Much ado about halal tourism: Religion, religiosity or none

of the above? 319

Omar Moufakkir, Yvette Reisinger and Dhoha AlSaleh

25 Tourism, migration and an expatriate workforce in the Middle East 330

Kevin Hannam and Cody Morris Paris

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Contents

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26 Business travel and the MICE industry in the Middle East 340

Joan C. Henderson

27 Medical tourism: In search of an economic niche 352

John Connell

28 Shopping, tourism and hyper-development in the Middle East

and North Africa 365

Esmat Zaidan

29 Conclusion: Future research directions 378

Dallen J. Timothy

Index 387

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FIGURES

14.1 OPEC countries’ share of OPEC oil reserves in 2015 181

14.2 Increase in tourism receipts from international arrivals 182

17.1 The difficulties facing Arabs from Jerusalem 222

20.1 Ports of call along the Nile River 263

20.2 Ports of call in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean 265

20.3 Ports of call in the Arabian Gulf 266

22.1 Air transport development model 293

22.2 A theoretical example of a grid network converted to hub-spoke 294

22.3 Air transport passenger growth for 15 airports in the Middle East 297

22.4 Origin–destination air transport passenger country market using

Dubai as a transit airport 300

22.5 Origin–destination air transport passenger country market using

Abu Dhabi as a transit airport 301

22.6 Origin–destination air transport passenger country market using

Doha as a transit airport 303

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TABLES

1.1 The countries of MENA and their basic characteristics 5

3.1 Religious adherence in MENA 28

3.2 Examples of the peoples of MENA 30

4.1 International tourism in MENA, 2012–2016 38

4.2 Cruise passengers arriving in MENA countries, 2012–2016 40

5.1 Examples of MENA’s intangible heritage on UNESCO’s

List of Intangible Cultural Heritage 59

5.2 A sample of unique handicrafts in the MENA region 63

12.1 Patterns of Christian tourism in the Middle East and North Africa 148

13.1 Water resources in MENA: Supply and demand 165

13.2 Economic indicators of agriculture and tourism sectors in

selected MENA countries 167

13.3 Desalination capacity and contribution to water resources 170

13.4 Water use categories for various tourism uses 173

13.5 Empirical data on water use in tourism in the MENA region 174

13.6 MENA’s water consumption 175

14.1 Airport development in Middle Eastern countries 183

15.1 Desert tourism challenges and recommended mitigation strategies 196

16.1 Observed changes in a range of climate indices since the middle

of the twentieth century 201

20.1 The growth of cruise passengers 2003–2013 260

22.1 Percentage of inter- and intra-continental passenger route

growth in the period 2006–2015 292

28.1 A selection of current waterfront development projects

in the Middle East 369

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Ammar O. Abulibdeh received his PhD from the University of Waterloo in Canada in 2013

in Geography and Environmental Management. He completed two Master’s degrees from the

University of Waterloo, a Master of Civil Engineering in 2006 and a Master of Applied Sciences

in Economic Development in 2007. Dr Abulibdeh is an assistant professor of geography and

urban planning at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. He was formerly a faculty member at

the United Arab Emirates University and Qatar University. He specialises in urban planning

and development, specifically in transportation and environmental planning. His research

interests focus on urban sustainability and planning policies, travel behaviour, climate change

and implications of sustainable transportation systems on sustainable development.

Nazia Ali is Senior Lecturer in Events and Leisure Management at the University of East

London. She is a graduate in Sociology from Middlesex University; she was awarded her doc￾torate from the University of Bedfordshire. Her research agenda is largely qualitative, operating

within an interpretive framework to investigate the role of tourism in identity formation. Nazia

has published in areas of tourism, migration and researcher reflexivity.

Dhoha AlSaleh is an assistant professor at Gulf University for Science and Technology—

Kuwait. She has published in several journals including Industrial Marketing Management, Tourism

Recreation Research, Journal of Business Ethics Education, Health Marketing Quarterly and Journal

of Business Inquiry. She received a number of research grants from Kuwait Foundation for the

Advancement of Sciences. She has participated in many international conferences. Her research

interests include consumer behaviour and technology, social media and cross-cultural studies.

She has recently become interested in the tourism behaviour of Arab and Muslim tourists,

including destination marketing and development.

Eli Avraham is Media Professor in the Department of Communication at the University

of Haifa, Israel. He is the author/co-author of a number of books including Campaigns for

Promoting and Marketing Cities in Israel (2003), Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis and

Improving the Image of Cities, Countries and Tourist Destinations (2008) and Marketing Tourism for

Developing Countries: Battling Stereotypes and Crises in Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2016). His

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Notes on contributors

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research interests include public relations and marketing strategies, marketing places, nation

branding, advertising, image repair and crisis communication.

Susanne Becken is the Director of the Griffith Institute for Tourism and a Professor of

Sustainable Tourism at Griffith University, Australia. She has widely published on the topics of

sustainable tourism, climate change, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, tourist behaviour,

environmental policy and risk management. She was a contributing author to the Fourth and

the Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports. She is on the edi￾torial boards of Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism,

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, Tourism and Hospitality Prospects (China)

and the Tourism Review.

Richard W. Butler, a geographer by training, is Emeritus Professor in the Strathclyde Business

School and Visiting Professor at NHTV University in Breda, Holland. He has published 20

books on tourism and many articles and chapters, his main research interests being destination

development, island tourism and the links between tourism, war and religion. He is a past presi￾dent of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and UNWTO Ulysses Laureate

(2016).

Christine N. Buzinde is an associate professor at Arizona State University. Her research

focuses on two areas: community development through tourism and the politics of tourism

representations. Her work on representations regards tourism texts as cultural repositories

through which inclusion/exclusion, North/South and core/periphery can be understood.

Her work on development adopts a grass-roots approach and aims to understand the rela￾tionship between community well-being and tourism development within marginalised

communities.

Michele Carboni is currently a researcher at CRENoS, University of Cagliari and University

of Sassari (Italy). His research interests are related to mobility, tourism and development in

Africa. In recent years, he has published mainly on tourism and Islam in Northern Africa.

Noga Collins-Kreiner is a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental

Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel, the Head of the Haifa and Galilee Research Institute

and the Vice-President of the Israeli Geographical Association (IGA). Her main research interests

are pilgrimage, heritage tourism, hiking and tourism development and management. She is also

a resource editor for Annals of Tourism Research and has published many papers on the topics of

tourism and human geography.

John Connell is Professor of Human Geography in the School of Geosciences, University of

Sydney. He has been a consultant to the World Health Organization and to the International

Labour Organization, the South Pacific Commission, the World Bank, the Asian Development

Bank, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the International Organisation of Migration. His

research interests span various themes in geography and development studies, but in this cen￾tury has focused on development in small island states, especially in the Pacific; the global and

regional migration of health workers, the development of medical tourism and other forms

of migration in the Pacific region, including temporary guestworkers and potential ‘environ￾mental migrants’. He has written more than 300 articles and over 20 books. The books include

Papua New Guinea. The Struggle for Development (1997); Urbanisation in the Island Pacific. Towards

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Notes on contributors

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Sustainable Development (with J. Lea, 2002); The Global Health Care Chain. From the Pacific to the

World (2008); Migration and the Globalisation of Health Care: The Health Worker Exodus (2010), and

more recently, Medical Tourism (2011) and Islands at Risk (2013).

Harald A.  Friedl is the Head of the Tourism Research Department and a Professor of

Sustainability and Ethics in Tourism at the FH JOANNEUM—University of Applied Sciences,

Austria. He has published on the topics of sustainable tourism, nature and health tourism,

terrorism in tourism, tourism in the Greater Middle East and innovative didactics in higher

tourism education.

C. Michael Hall is a professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and Visiting

Professor at Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden, and Docent, University of Oulu, Finland.

His research interests include tourism, regional development, environmental change, food,

sustainability and World Heritage.

Kevin Hannam is a professor and Dean of the Faculty of International Tourism at City

University of Macau. He is also a senior research fellow at the University of Johannesburg,

South Africa. He holds a PhD from the University of Portsmouth, UK. Previously he held

positions as Head of Tourism & Languages at Edinburgh Napier University, Director of Doctoral

Programmes at Leeds Beckett University and Associate Dean (Research) and Head of Tourism,

Hospitality and Events at the University of Sunderland, UK. He has edited and authored/co￾authored ten books and over 100 academic articles and book chapters. He is founding co-editor

of the academic journals Mobilities and Applied Mobilities. He is also a resource editor for Annals

of Tourism Research and serves on the editorial boards of Tourist Studies, the International Journal of

Tourism Anthropology, the Journal of Heritage Tourism and Tourism Geographies.

Joan C. Henderson was Associate Professor in the Division of Marketing and International

Business, specialising in tourism studies, at Nanyang Business School (Singapore) for over 20 years

before her retirement from full-time employment in 2019. Prior to moving to Singapore, she

lectured in travel and tourism in the United Kingdom after periods of working in the public and

private tourism sectors there. She is a regular reviewer for a number of international tourism and

hospitality journals and sits on the editorial board of several. She has published widely on the sub￾ject, contributed chapters to edited books and written one book. Current research interests include

issues of tourism development in the Middle East and South East Asia and heritage tourism.

Rami K. Isaac was born in Palestine, did his undergraduate studies in the Netherlands, his

graduate studies in the UK and has earned his PhD from the University of Groningen in the

Netherlands. He is a senior lecturer in tourism, teaching at the NHTV Breda University of

Applied Sciences. In addition, he is Assistant Professor at Bethlehem University, Palestine. His

research interests are in the area of tourism development and management, critical theory and

political aspects of tourism.

Magdalena Karolak is Associate Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Zayed

University, UAE and has a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Silesia, Poland. Her research

interests include transformations of societies in the Arabian Gulf and comparative linguistics.

She has published more than 30 journal articles and book chapters on shifting gender relations,

social media, culture and identity and political system transformations in the Gulf Cooperation

Council countries.

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Notes on contributors

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Nurit Kliot is Emerita Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment Studies

at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her main research areas are management of water resources,

local and transboundary resources, environmental resources management, political geography

and geopolitics, population migration and refugees, Middle East, terrorism, climate change,

tourism and tourism management. She is the author of five books, seven edited volumes, four

monographs and about 100 scientific papers and chapters in edited volumes. Her current

research interests include hiking trails, refugees and human rights, and climate change effects.

Gui Lohmann is Associate Professor in Aviation Management and Head of the Aviation Discipline

at Griffith University (Australia). He has authored several books, including Tourism Theory: Concepts,

Models and Systems (2012), and peer-reviewed journal articles in English, Spanish and Portuguese

on transport- and tourism-related topics. He has worked as a consultant for the Brazilian Ministry

of Tourism, the World Tourism Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme,

in addition to providing consulting to Adelaide Airport, Brisbane Airport Corporation and

Queensland Airport Ltd. He is the founder and previous executive director of ABRATUR, the

International Academy for the Development of Tourism Research in Brazil.

Asad Mohsin is Associate Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Management at the Waikato

Management School. He has accumulated several years of industry and academic experience

working in different countries in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific region,

including Australia. His main research interests and publications are in the area of Tourism

& Hospitality customer perceptions and contemporary trends, human resource issues and

challenges, and product and service quality assessment.

Omar Moufakkir is currently Associate Professor of Marketing and Head of the Business

Administration Department at the Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait. His

research interests include Arab travel, politics and prejudice in tourism. He also researches the

influential role of cultural differences and how these manifest in the context of tourism.

Mairna H. Mustafa is an associate professor in the Queen Rania Faculty of Tourism &

Heritage at the Hashemite University-Zarqa, Jordan. Her research interests and published work

are mostly in the behaviour of tourists in archaeological sites, tourism education, socio-cultural

impacts of tourism and sustainable tourism development.

Daniel H. Olsen is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at Brigham Young

University in Provo, Utah, US. His research interests revolve around religious and spiritual

tourism, heritage tourism and the management of sacred sites, with secondary research interests

in tourism in peripheral areas and tourism and disabilities. He is co-editor of Tourism, Religion

and Spiritual Journeys (2006), and has published over 40 journal articles and book chapters.

Aylin Orbaşlı is Reader in Architectural Regeneration at Oxford Brookes University. Her

research interests are focused on tourism and the conservation of historic urban districts, with

a specific focus on the Islamic world. As a consultant she works across the Middle East with

national and regional authorities and donor organisations supporting the conservation and

management of cultural heritage, including World Heritage Sites.

Cody Morris Paris is the Deputy Director of Middlesex University Dubai and an Associate

Professor in the School of Law and the Business School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow