Oman to build six new airports as its differentiated tourism offer attracts more visitors

Oman has always presented a different face to the rest of the world compared with some of its neighbours in the Gulf.

It is the only developed country in the region with an Indian Ocean coast, and parts of its own coast are a haven for visitors from India when temperatures get too high there.

It also attracts them by way of a differentiated tourism offer that is based around nature, culture and history across the large country, rather than glamour concentrated in skyscraper dominated cities.

And that may be at least partly why a decision has been taken to build six new regional airports in addition to the two that have opened in the past seven years; one of them on island with nascent tourist potential.

They will probably remain within the orbit of the state airports management company, OAMC. Oman has flirted with foreign private sector management in the past - almost a quarter of a century ago now - but it did not end happily.

But as the size of the organisation grows, along with the managed airspace, there is always the prospect that it might come back under review.