Suleiman Masoud al Harthy, CEO, Tameer Investment, speaks about challenges, opportunities and Omanisation in Oman's tourism sector

Tameer Investment, the company that has investments in real estate, industrial and service sectors, is developing a five-star resort and hotel in Salalah. Suleiman Masoud al Harthy, CEO, Tameer Investment, speaks to Business Today about the challenges and opportunities in the tourism sector and how forced Omanisation could potentially hinder economic growth.

Why did you select Salalah for the project when most of the companies are focusing on Muscat?

We believe that the market in Oman, particularly in Salalah, is under-serviced and that gives us a lot of scope to grow. The demand for five-star hotel rooms and apartments is rapidly rising in the Dhofar region, where a huge gap exists between demand and availability. With a new airport coming up in 2014, it will increase market feeders, including additional flights, passengers, their crew and people handling cargo. So what is the availability of quality hotels, rooms, guest houses or buildings that can absorb additional passengers? Not much. And it is not the responsibility of the government to do all these things, it is the responsibility of the private sector to benefit from the opportunity.

High room rents are being seen as a hurdle in promoting tourism in Oman. How far is this true?

Tourism is a big sector for the country and there is a gap between market demand and what the developers are offering. The room rents in Oman are the most expensive in the region and that does not give us a good position in the international market. You have to offer the best services at reasonable rates. In Oman, even availability of rooms is an issue. If you plan a visit during the peak season, you may not get a room. So tourists won't come here and we will lose business.

A number of hotels are coming up in the region. So will the rents soften a bit?

Not likely. For example, the government is expanding Salalah airport's capacity and it will go up to half a million passengers. It may even touch 2mn in different phases in the next few years. But where are the supporting services that can match this expansion? So we have been emphasising on integration. For example, in the last 15 years not a single hotel has come up in Salalah. Only recently, a new hotel was opened and another one is under construction. We are also building one. All these new projects will be easily absorbed by the market and there will be demand for more such hotels. Even today, there is 70 per cent occupancy in Salalah throughout the year.

What are the other challenges that make it difficult to promote tourism?

When tourists arrive in the country, they would not want to sit in their rooms or on the beach. Other recreational activities must be planned keeping in mind the interests of the tourists. This could in turn create a lot of job opportunities. We are fighting hard to create jobs for the local population but dictating the percentage of Omanisation in the private sector is making it difficult to operate as there is a shortage of trained manpower. We have to create job opportunities for Omanis and that's the only way to address unemployment.

So how do we create job opportunities for Omanis?

Let the economy grow and everyone will get job opportunities. A free market economy is the way for economic growth. If the government tries to hold, control or close the very vein of the economy, then it would halt progress. If the government limits itself to the role of a regulator then we will see tremendous growth.

But why is Omanisation a worry for your company? After all your firm needs manpower.

We don't have enough qualified Omani manpower available. Today, there is a need to improve the quality of training. Educational and training institutes should tailor their programmes to the needs of the industry. Currently, no one is doing that. If somebody trains a person for three months without knowing what the industry wants, it would be very difficult for companies like us to employ that person. Ministry of Manpower is losing resources and money on such training programmes and then they force the private sector to hire these people. That simply cannot work.

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