Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sultan Billed as Grinch by Telegraph
The Telegraph ran the story "Sultan Ruins Christmas in Oman" today, regarding the slide of the Gulf Cooperation Council summit from late-November to the holiday timeframe. The Royal Diwan sent out notice to the leading hotels that Christmas bookings must be cleared out for the summit attendees, evidently leading to some disgruntled British holiday travelers. Unfortunately, the article was mute on why the summit was slid. While I can understand the traveler's anger, Oman's hosting of the GCC summit is no trivial matter. Oman needs to get the reasons for this change out into the presses in order to mitigate the bad PR and its effect on the tourism industry. I haven't had a chance to research the reason for the slide. Any insight?
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7 comments:
The GCC summit was ALWAYS held in the last month of every year (December). I don't know when and why Oman requested to have it in late-November this year (was there an official announcement for that anyways?), but having the GCC summit in late-November is kinda impossible.
The Omani National Day is on November the 18th. From that date till the very end of November, the country will be too busy celebrating the 38th National Day, beginning with military parades, official & personal dinners hosted by His Majesty the Sultan and whatnot, and ending with the two-days official National Day holiday which is in the end of November. So there is no way to have the summit held anytime in late-November. Hence, it doesn't make sense to me that Oman requested that the GCC summit to take place in late-November this year, but as I implied earlier, I haven't even heard anything about that before.
The GCC summit cannot be held in the beginning of December either. This year, Hajj days start from the very first week of December and Eid al-Adha would be sometime in the very beginning of the next week of December. By the time Eid is totally over, that would be almost three weeks of December gone already. So, only the last 10 days of December are left for the summit.
HELL YES. I will be there at the time on holiday and am so happy the tourists will be kept away.
Bless our fearless leader.
-Omani in US
In addition, the article writer is smoking crack if he thinks this'll affect Oman's tourism prospects. They will keep coming, and everyone knows it.
Also, what amjad said.
-Omani in US
I've written a reply to this, but I want everyone to see it so I've posted it as a regular post....
A delegation visited the Al Bustan over Eid and discovered the renovations were somewhat behind schedule "if HM had been there heads would have rolled". This, however, is at odds with a statement the week before by the GM of the Al Bustan stating that everything was fine (although he would say that). I guess heads are now rolling...
Hey Leo,
didn't come by before I did my rant on this yesterday.
Nice post. But it shows how far the MOT have to go in the professionalism dept.
Amjad, OIUS
Of course they had to hold it sometime, and that the other constraints means it has to happen then, no problem. Just manage the side-effects. 1,000 tourists, 1,000 pounds each compensation + expenses & PR (perhaps a free junket form some more travel editors)= 1 million rials that would have solved 99% of the problem. Peanuts in the scheme of the budget for the AGCC conference.
But they are also doing this pretty last minute. Conferences like this should be scheduled a lot further in advance than this.
there is so much to say here. let me start by saying that "anonymous" is an idiot! you are a bad ambassador for Oman. So keep your stupid, ignorant mouth shut, even if you think you are actually saying anything remotely intelligent! This is how your friend Saddam got his rear end nuked. it all started with small things like this...... learn from history!
GCC conference??? what the hell is that?! a useless, time and money wasting gathering, where all the fat rich arab leaders get together each year to brag to one another about who's got what? when have you ever heard of anything useful ever emerging from any of these so called "talks"? i ask you "Amjad" (not you Anonymous, as i've asked you to keep yours shut), name me 1, just 1 good thing that's ever come out of any of these expensive orgies that have been taking place for 30 some years?! As you know, these meetings are closed and censored from the public. so anything you say, was dictated to you by regulated media bodies.
i have no real problem with the GCC countries throwing these bling parties for one another. i do have a problem however, when they interfere with promises made to its real guests, the paying tourists! The Oman government still has no idea what this has done to its reputation. So when you hear pathetic spoilt little brats like "Anonymous" making comments like, "blah, blah, blah our fearless leader", you think, no bitch, you're the one on CRACK! There is nothing fearless about the Sultan of Oman, i can assure you. on the other hand, Saddam was fearless, where's he now?
And so,....
On behalf of Oman, the sultan and the REAL people of Oman, i apologize to all those hard working families who had put faith in our country to deliver on its promise of providing you all a fabulous Christmas season in the sun. I only ask that you please not judge the country or its good people by the few crackheads who know not what they say, or by a leader who means well but is too preoccupied to notice the irrationality of his decisions. if my home were big enough, i kid you not, i would have personally hosted every one of those families.
May Oman live to prosper.
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