Oman / Travel
OMRAN and WTTC Launch Tourism Indices Linking Growth, Resources and Jobs
OMRAN Group’s partnership with the World Travel & Tourism Council has produced a new international tourism benchmark, launched at WTM London on 3 November and reported in Oman on 4 November. The Power, Efficiency and Opportunity indices assess 184 economies across economic scale, environmental efficiency and employment, with Oman’s results drawing attention to women’s and young people’s participation in tourism work.
A new benchmark, using an earlier measurement period
The research was developed by WTTC and Oxford Economics in collaboration with OMRAN. Its three dimensions are intended to be read together: economic power measures the sector’s scale; environmental efficiency relates its resource use and footprint to economic activity; and opportunity examines employment. The underlying comparison highlighted at the launch is between 2019 and 2024. The November 2026 announcement is therefore the release of a framework and its findings, rather than a measurement of tourism conditions this week.
Oman Observer reports that Oman’s scores improved across all three dimensions over that comparison period. That provides a broader picture than a single arrivals total, but the result should not be read as a claim that Oman leads every international ranking. Improvement over time and position relative to other countries are different questions. A destination can improve its own performance while another improves faster, and the relevance of any comparison depends on the indicators selected and the economies used as peers.
Employment findings put Oman in focus
According to the published findings, women represent 28% of travel and tourism jobs in Oman, against an 18% regional figure for the Middle East. Young people account for 13% of the sector’s jobs, compared with less than 9% across the wider Omani economy. These are employment shares, not unemployment rates, and the figures do not identify the number of new jobs created during 2026. Their value lies in showing which groups are represented within tourism’s workforce relative to the stated comparison groups.
The next question is what those jobs offer. A workforce share cannot establish average pay, hours, promotion opportunities or the durability of a position across seasons. For a destination developer, the useful follow-through would connect employment participation to training, retention and progression at individual projects. That would show whether a hotel, attraction or visitor service is helping people build a career as well as enter the labour market. Such project-level evidence would complement the international index rather than being implied by its headline percentages.
Economic scale remains concentrated
The Power Index places the United States, China and India at the top, with the leading 20 economies accounting for 81% of global travel and tourism GDP in 2024. As reported by eTurboNews at the London launch, the framework brings economic contribution, employment and investment into its assessment of power. Large economies naturally have advantages in measures of absolute scale. That is why an economic ranking alone offers an incomplete comparison for smaller destinations seeking to evaluate the return from a particular development strategy.
For Oman, a more useful policy question than matching the size of a continental tourism economy is where additional investment produces durable domestic value. A new visitor facility may generate spending, but its contribution also depends on how much work reaches local suppliers and how effectively it uses existing infrastructure. The indices create separate places to examine scale, resources and people. They do not calculate the business case for a specific resort, and they should not replace the demand forecasts and operating assessments required for individual investments.
Efficiency needs an absolute counterpart
Environmental efficiency considers greenhouse gases, low-carbon energy, water, air pollution and materials. The distinction between efficiency and total impact is essential when interpreting a growing tourism sector. If an operation uses less water per unit of output but expands substantially, total water use can still rise. A favourable efficiency score therefore answers a different question from whether a destination’s total resource demand has fallen. Both measures can be useful, particularly where visitor activity places pressure on shared services and natural assets.
For tourism projects, the practical application would be to pair an efficiency indicator with its physical total and location. Annual water consumption, for example, becomes more meaningful when viewed alongside the number of occupied rooms and the local supply conditions. The same principle applies to emissions and waste. An international benchmark can help identify an issue worth investigating, while local measurements show where a response is needed. This is an analytical use of the new framework, not a claim that the launch imposed new operating requirements on Omani businesses.
From a London launch to investment decisions
OMRAN’s role gives Oman a connection to the development of a global research product, not simply a position within its tables. The launch also places three objectives beside one another that can otherwise be discussed separately: a larger tourism economy, more efficient resource use and wider access to work. Reading them together can expose trade-offs. A proposal might perform well on employment while requiring closer attention to resource demand, or generate significant investment without delivering the same distribution of opportunities as another option.
The value of the exercise will depend on how the findings are used after the event. Consistent definitions, repeat measurement and transparent comparisons are needed to distinguish sustained improvement from a change in methodology. For Oman, the immediate news is the release of a framework it helped support, accompanied by positive results for the 2019–2024 period. The next step is to connect that national evidence to decisions on destinations, infrastructure and employment, so that the international comparison informs practical choices rather than remaining an additional tourism league table.
Gabriel Nicolaev – CyGuru
Sources & further reading
Oman Observer: WTTC and OMRAN launch report
eTurboNews: WTM London launch and findings
WTTC: Power, Efficiency and Opportunity dashboard