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September 1, 2020
Has Coronavirus cases peaked in the World and GCC
The outbreak of novel Coronavirus across the globe, which affected lives of millions of people continues to take its toll on the global economies. With more than 7-8 months into the crisis the virus is still omnipresent. It forced countries to adopt control measures like lockdown, curfew, social distancing, masks etc. As a result of which many countries have been successful in curbing the rate of spread and have also moved past the peak in terms of maximum confirmed cases...
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April 1, 2020
Visualizing a post Covid-19 World: What to expect?
Consumer behavior will change in terms of tourism, investment, e-commerce etc; Public health care spending will improve drastically even post covid-19; Maturity of government leadership and bureaucracy will deepen; Massive fiscal stimulus can trigger stagflation; Capex by oil producers will see a significant decline impacting future oil prices; Low oil price will slow down electric vehicle penetration especially in emerging economies; Currency volatility will peak; World will prepare to depend less on China for supply chain support; Climate control will...
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October 1, 2018
GCC Travel & Tourism: Build it but will they come?
As a part of their economic diversification strategy, Gulf countries have been increasingly focussing on the expansion of service sectors such as tourism, business, logistics and financial services. The huge stock of fiscal and foreign reserves in the Arabian Gulf favoured the development of the tourism industry as a core strategy to attract both foreign tourists as well as business travellers. In 2017, the investment in the Gulf’s travel & tourism sector was USD 34.3bn that is expected to rise...
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June 14, 2018
The Burgeoning Entertainment Industry in Saudi Arabia
As a part of its broader economic diversification plans, Saudi Arabia took an unprecedented policy move by framing a new entertainment policy. In line with the Kingdom’s Vision of 2030 of creating a vibrant society, General Entertainment Authority (GEA) has been established and an investment of US$ 64 Bn has been planned (BBC News 2018). GEA is part of the subprogram, Quality of Life under the Vision 2030 which aims for improving lifestyle by increasing entertainment and cultural avenues. Entertainment...
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March 4, 2018
Emergence of Sports in the Arab Region
The Arab nations have been under the limelight ever since Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2018, the first time in history where four teams from the region will be competing in the global event. The efforts taken by Arab nations have started to pay dividends as they see the emergence of sports in the region. Acknowledging the potential of the sports tourism market, focus has been laid on bringing global events to the...
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February 28, 2018
Gaming Market in the Middle East – Part2: Key trends in the Middle East gaming market
As part of the gaming sector study in the GCC region we were able to find out some prominent trends in the GCC region that we have chronicled below. Some of the trends were not quite obvious before venturing into this blog. For example, piracy has been a primary reason behind the gaming culture in the region and even within the Middle East region there are significant differences in product distribution networks. Mobile gaming has been an important revenue generator...
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February 27, 2018
Gaming Market in the Middle East – Part 1: A Cathartic Experience
Not many people would conjure up the image of the Middle East region when talking about video games and their growth in general. Wars and internal conflicts often overshadow the vibrant and growing market for video games in the region. Video game culture has been an offshoot of such conflicts – many youngsters find it a cathartic experience to win against the forces that have been responsible for wide spread conflicts in the region and admit that it is one...
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April 12, 2015
Major Tourism Trends in the GCC
Middle East attracts tourists throughout the year for its beautiful beaches, cultural and archaeological sites, and nature tourism. The region offers various entertainment and shopping avenues, and myriad of attractions. Also considerable amount of pilgrims visit during the Hajj season. International Tourists arrivals in the Middle East remained unchanged between 2012 and 2013. However, it grew by 4% in 2014. On the contrary global international tourists’ movement grew by 4.7% per cent during 2013 - 2014. The Middle East region...