The Ecotourism Landscape of Qatar

Abstract

The small oil and gas-rich State of Qatar has been propelled into the international tourism spotlight with its successful hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup football championship. In order to showcase its additional ecotourism offerings, Discover Qatar and Qatar Tourism, who promote, manage, and regulate the tourism sector in Qatar, have embarked on a strategic plan to promote Qatar’s natural spaces and unique flora and fauna as tourist resources. For example, Qatar boasts a large whale shark population and one of the largest populations in the world of Dugongs (sea cows, a marine mammal related to the Manatee). The Arabian Oryx has also been successfully re-introduced into the wild and tourists may explore Qatar’s mangrove forests by boat. However, Qatar’s limited geographical size, and the increasing urbanization and development of this small peninsula, as well as the harsh, arid desert climate which can reach temperatures of 50-52 degrees Celsius, place hard limits on the development of ecotourism in Qatar. Based on the limited amount of tourism research on Qatar, and several international symposia on the ecology of Qatar, in addition to the author’s own original research on desert tourism in the region, this contribution reviews the current state of both Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism in Qatar and offers practical recommendations for their successful implementation without long-term harm to Qatar’s extremely fragile ecosystems, which are under threat from building construction, marine development (artificial islands and channels), hydrocarbon pollution, and natural warming and increasing salination of the Persian Gulf waters.