Societal implications of UAE tourism development

The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) was dependent upon oil for its wealth as recently as the 1990s; this has changed since a tourism focus was taken by the government (DTCM, Citation2013). The country has since become an international tourism destination (Sharpley, Citation2008). The success of tourism in the U.A.E is now recognized as paramount to the sustainability of the country (Bageen, Citation2007; Sharpley, Citation2008). The pace of changes in domestic economic patterns brought about through tourism has been accompanied by issues known to plague tourism. This includes sociocultural impacts, which have been consistently evidenced as a potential negative effect of tourism (Erisman, Citation1983; Nunez, Citation1963; Turner & Ash, Citation1975).

Limited research has investigated the U.A.E’s tourism impacts despite rapid modernization (Bagaeen, Citation2007; Balakrishnan, Citation2008; Govers & Go, Citation2009; Henderson, Citation2006a, Citation2006b; Sharpley, Citation2008). Some studies have hypothesized that sociocultural impacts of tourism have been significant in the U.A.E though. These studies have primarily focused on a loss of heritage and sociocultural factors (Stephenson, Citation2014; Stephenson & Ali-Knight, Citation2010; Stephenson, Russell, & Edgar, Citation2010; Zaidan, Citation2016). Furthermore, a westernization of social and cultural elements stemming from rapid tourism growth may be impacting the U.A.E (Stephenson, Citation2014; Zaidan, Citation2016).