International Tourism Development and the Gulf Cooperation Council States: Challenges and Opportunities (Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility)

Marcus holds a PhD in Social Tourism from Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) and he has published extensively on the sociology of tourism, especially concerning nationality, race, ethnicity, culture and religion. About the AuthorMarcus L. Stephenson is a Professor of Tourism and Hospitality and Head of the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of the South Pacific. He holds a Masters in Human Geography and a PhD in Economic and Social Geography from Kiev State University, Ukraine. He is co-author of Tourism and Citizenship:Rights, Freedoms and Responsibilities in the Global Order, a Routledge publication (2014).Ala Al-Hamarneh is an Assistant Professor of Human Geography and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research on the Arab World (CERAW), Johannes Gutenberg University

Therefore, this volume takes the study of tourism away from its normative unit of analysis, where tourism in the region is being examined within the context of the Middle East and the wider Islamic and Arab world, towards an enquiry focusing on a specific geo-political territory and socially defined region. The book combines theory with diverse case study illustrations, drawing on disciplinary knowledge from such fields as sociology, political economy and social geography. It shares similar associations and affinities: tribal histories, royal kinship, political associations, Bedu cultural roots, Islamic heritage, rapid urbanization, oil wealth, rentier dynamics, state capitalist structures, migrant labour, economic diversification policies and institutional restructuring. Although international tourism development in the region embodies a range of challenges, complexities and conflicts, which are deeply contextualized in this volume, the approach overall does not endorse the normative ‘Gulf bashing’ position that has predominated within the critical enquiries in the region. This region, which largely comprises the Arabia

He is also a visiting professor at the University of Sharjah (UAE). Currently he is involved in research on intra-regional mobilities in the GCC region and neoliberal urban developments in the Arab world.. He is co-author of Tourism and Citizenship:Rights, Freedoms and Responsibilities in the Global Order, a Routledge publication (2014).Ala Al-Hamarneh is an Assistan