Socio-cultural Impacts of Tourism in Abu Dhabi: Analyzing Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behavior of Locals Towards Tourism

Abu Dhabi has experienced enormous change within the last 60 years. From a small fishermen village with 5000 inhabitants in 1950, the discovery of oil in the 1960¿s transformed it into one of the wealthiest capitals of today¿s time. Whereas half a century ago locals lived in mud-huts and had no hospitals nor schools, they now enjoy modern infrastructure, luxury hotels and one of the highest levels of personal income in the region. At the same time tourism in Abu Dhabi is growing at an incredible pace, with the number of guests in the Emirate almost tripling from currently 0.7 to 3 million in 2015. Logically, the question arises what impact this tourism growth has for the local people of Abu Dhabi. Do they profit from this development? Are they in favor of it? How is their life influenced by tourism? Through living in Abu Dhabi for 5 months, conducting interviews, newspaper scans, literature reviews, and a community survey, it was possible for the author to arrive at many interesting findings, and at the same time create a book which explains all important aspects of social and cultural impacts of tourism in a destination.