Oman tourism: Cruise tourists don’t spend money in Muttrah Souq

Muscat: A majority of cruise tourists spend less than OMR5 at Souq Muttrah, while 40 per cent do not spend anything, recent research revealed.
“They are tourists, but without money”, said a well-established Indian shop owner in the Souq, while another vendor from the harbor street complained, “Tourists are just looking, they do not buy anything. Only those who come by airplane buy here”.
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Tourists’ spending behaviours change due to many reasons, according to researcher Manuela Gutberlet, PhD candidate in Cultural Geography at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) and PR Manager at GUtech.
“Low quality products, large crowds of tourists and the similarity of merchandise prevent visitors from buying anything,” she explained, adding that, during one of her surveys the number of tourists entering the Souq exceeded the number of locals by 88 per cent.
“There are more tourists than locals” Manuela Gutberlet said, adding that the majority of German-speaking tourists coming mainly from Switzerland, Austria and Germany, arrive off of the mega cruise liners and buy small and less expensive souvenirs, most of them not locally made.
Some 43 per cent had bought pashmina scarves (usually replicated pashminas made in China and sold for OMR1), followed by Omani frankincense (22.3 per cent), postcards (21.8 per cent) and other small items (16.5 per cent), including belly dancing dresses, dates, oil lamps, perfume oils, medicine from the pharmacy, key-chains, magnets, ashtrays and T-shirts.
Typical Omani products that are also bought by locals, such as a dishdasha and turbans (6.5 per cent), gold and silver (7.3 per cent), or khanjars (2.0 per cent), were rarely purchased by those cruise tourists surveyed.
Due to the rising demand, the number of shops selling inexpensive, imported items has increased inside the “tourist bubble”. “‘Unfortunately, they are selling pashminas and elephants from Thailand. It has become like a textile souq. We see more T-shirts with ‘I Love Oman’ or Indian saris”, complained an Omani tour guide.