Destination Libya: Developing Libya as an Internationally – Competitive Tourism Destination

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Author
Khalifa, Akram Esa Omar
Date
2010Type
Thesis
Publisher
University of Wales
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Libya is an emerging tourism destination in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
region. Early efforts to encourage tourism in the 1990s were re-energised after the
lifting of UN sanctions in 2003 following dramatic changes in Libya’s foreign policy.
Despite a healthy economy, high rates of unemployment (30%) combine with a
dominant source of income - oil - which contributes 95% of GDP. Thus Libya is
considering tourism for economic diversification. This thesis explores the challenges
that face Libya in this endeavour and develops a best practice model (SCDM2) to help
Libya achieve its ambitions as an internationally-competitive tourism destination.
Data collection from key stakeholders in the Libyan tourism product (government
officials, tour operators, hotel managers, tourists and local communities) involved five
qualitative methods (focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews, document
analysis, audio-visual materials and participant observation).
Libya is a unique destination with: long untouched coastal beaches; stunning and wellpreserved
Roman and Greek antiquities; amazing desert adventure opportunities; prehistoric
civilisations; generous and hospitable people. Despite being very safe, Libya
has an image problem in the UK: desert; hot; a culture similar to other Arab countries;
controlled by Qudaffi who promotes anti western policies. The tourism industry faces
enormous challenges, mostly related to the absence of a clear strategy for tourism
development: destination accessibility; poor protection for tourism
attractions/antiquities; weak human resource development, environmental and quality
service issues.
The demand side of SCDM2 focuses on destination image. The supply side addresses
destination elements: destination accessibility; destination planning and management;
supporting resources; local communities; comparative advantage; the significance of
global environment.
The thesis concludes that despite good comparative advantage there are major
challenges to delivering appropriately-priced, high-quality products enabling Libya to
compete with other MENA destinations and makes a number of recommendations to
Libya’s decision-makers to address the key challenges.
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