Exploring the Tourism and Hospitality Entrepreneurs? Experiences in Oman

In the Sultanate of Oman, tourism is a burgeoning industry. Increasing numbers of visitors, attracted by the country?s natural beauty and intriguing culture, have helped tourism to contribute more than 7% to Oman?s GDP, and the target is to eventually create around 535,000 tourism jobs (Badi and Khan, 2020). It has been observed that tourism growth boosts entrepreneurship, which in turn has a positive effect on infrastructure development and local living standards (Devkota, Paudel and Bhandari, 2020). Thus, tourism is considered by the leaders of the country to be a feasible and sustainable source of economic growth to help move away from an overreliance on oil and gas as the main drivers of the economy. To this end, the Ministry of Tourism of Oman has laid out its proposals and strategies in the form of its Vision 2040, an updated version of the earlier Vision 2020, which makes a case for economic diversification (Khan and Kays, 2016). As part of Vision 2040, a Special Tourism Entrepreneurship Program (TEP) will be launched, which will provide training in the areas of tourism start-ups, operations and management. The purpose of this initiative is to encourage innovative approaches to presenting the country?s natural beauty and its unique culture to both domestic and international visitors (Oman Tourism Strategy, 2016). In fact, the Oman Tourism Strategy aims to facilitate the establishment of 1200 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by 2040. To ensure that the country?s workforce is ready for the challenge, Oman is embarking on a programme to educate and prepare male and female citizens for both public and private sector tourism-related jobs (Khan and Kays, 2016). Therefore, this research aims to understand the tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs? experiences, challenges and motivations. The following objectives are planned to be achieved: 1- Explore the motivations of tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs to initiate a start-up. 2- Understand the factors influencing successful/unsuccessful start-ups in tourism and hospitality. 3- Understand the role of education in their success. 4- Explore the challenges they faced during their entrepreneurship journey.