Tourism in the Middle East

Continuity, Change and Transformation

Edited by Dr. Rami Farouk Daher

Publication date:

10 November 2006

Publisher

Channel View Publications

Dimensions:

210x148mm
6x8"

ISBN-13: 9781845410513

This edited volume on tourism in the Middle East embodies a multi-discursive approach to the study of tourism in the region offering not only different perspectives but qualifying local knowledge and realities. The book re-examines the discourse of tourism within geopolitical contemporary regional realities. The book re-conceptualizes tourism as a discourse linked to heritage and identity construction, national and global economies, and development of local communities. Alternatively, a new discursive approach to the understanding of tourism emerges out of invigorating and stimulating latent regional realities and the social histories of various towns, villages, and cultural landscapes within the contested and politically-charged region of the Middle East. The book investigates issues of national identity, authenticity, definition of heritage, representation of cultures and regions, community & tourism development, urban tourism, heritage conservation & tourism, and tourism related investments through a new vision for the region that transcends current geopolitics or national and formal historiographies.

Preface
Acknowledgement
1. Reconceptualizing Tourism in the Middle East: Place, Heritage, Mobility & Competitiveness - Rami Farouk Daher
2. A Historiography of Tourism in Cairo: A Spatial Perspective - Noha Nasser
3. From One Globalization to Another: In Search for the Seeds of Modern Tourism in the Levant, A Western Perspective - Xavier Guillot
4. Digital Spatial Representations: New Communication Processes & 'Middle Eastern' UNESCO World Heritage Sites Online - Scott McLeod
5. Visitors, Visions and Veils: The Portrayal of the Arab World in Tourism Advertising - Saba Al Mahadin and Peter Burns
6. The 'Islamic' City and Tourism: Managing Conservation and Tourism in Traditional Neighbourhoods - Aylin Orbasli
7. Development of Community Based Tourism in Oman: Challenges and Opportunities - Birgit Mershen
8. From Hajj to Hedonism? Paradoxes of Developing Tourism in Saudi Arabia - Peter Burns
9. Touristic Development in Sinai, Egypt: Bedouin, Visitors, and Government Interaction - David Homa
10. Tourism, Heritage, and Urban Transformations in Jordan & Lebanon: Emerging Actors & Global-Local Juxtapositions - Rami Farouk Daher
11. Tourism and Power Relations in Jordan: Contested Discourses and Semiotic Shifts - Salam Al Mahadin

This collection is the first really penetrating analysis of tourism in the contemporary Middle East. It covers a variety of appropriate topics, including investment, post-colonialism, neo-colonialism, gentrification, stratification, exploitation, representation, and virtual tourism, in chapters written by a range of Middle Eastern, European and American authorities. However, it is the leadership and guidance of the editor Rami Daher, a well-known Jordanian architect, academic and hands on critical public intellectual that gives the book its thrust. Daher does not hold back in his critical analyses of international and national power relations in Middle Eastern tourism developments, strongly motivated by his respect of the creativity of all classes and historical periods, whether they are popular tourism targets or not, all underpinned by his own love for the people of Jordan and Palestine. This is absolutely the most important book on tourism and the Middle East ever written to date.