Abstract
Recently, Geotourism (tourism with a geological base) has flourished on a global context and its demand has increased considerably. This tourism phenomenon is still new and has not gained traction in some world regions, such as the Middle East. Thus, exploring the scope of geotourism development in the Middle East is an urgent need and so far, few studies have investigated aspects of geological tourism in this region. Taken together, the Middle East is renowned for its outstanding and distinctive 'abiotic' (non-living) attractions and there is a great potential to provide holistic tourism experiences in a variety of geosites. An overview of the geotourism development in the Middle East is outlined in this chapter, including the characteristics of geotourism and geotourists, the main challenges for geotourism development, and geotoruism business and industry in the Middle East.
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Allan, M. (2023). Geotourism in the Middle East. In: Allan, M., Dowling, R. (eds) Geotourism in the Middle East. Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24170-3_4
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