Marine wealth boosts Salalah’s winter tourism

SALALAH, Nov 3  - Increasing demand for Salalah among European tourists is opening doors for entrepreneurs of all sorts and there are people who are willing to grab this opportunity at the earliest with due support from the authorities. Salalah’s beautiful beaches with different shades of warm and cold currents are home to different fish species. It surprises section of visitors when they find huge difference in sea temperature from one place to another, and while digging for reasons they find presence of so many marine species spread all over. They cite the examples of difference in seawater temperature between Salalah and Sadah. “While Salalah water is normal warm like most of the places, entering into seawater in Sadah gives an entirely different feeling of cool and chill, that forces a visitor to retreat fast and jump to a nearby boat,” admitted a tourist from Germany who loves fishing. For the sake of fishing, he is visiting Salalah every year for the last three years. This change might be the reason for the presence of so many marine species in and around Salalah. Not only have the tourists, some researchers also found Salalah unique location for marine animals. The ICUN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, found an Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) just in front of Crowne Plaza Salalah Resort, where small groups of endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphins were spotted. This strength of Salalah gives Yousuf al Shanfari, Managing Director of Around the Ocean, the reason to call for a proactive approach to promote Salalah as an important marine entertainment destination. Due to his drive to do something different for this sector in Salalah, Yousuf al Shanfari’s enterprise is treated as one of the success stories for many others to emulate. For him Salalah is one of the best locations for recreational fishing in the Sultanate. This is fishing for pleasure as also for competition. The tourists love to venture into the sea to catch so many varieties. Among the sport fish varieties, Salalah is lucky to have Kingfish, Baracuda, Torado, Tuna (including yellowfin tuna — in season), Black Marlyn and Sailfish. Yousuf finds November to April good time for entertainment fishing. He exhorts youngsters who have natural liking for sea activities to take up this enterprise after proper training. He wants Salalah to grow as an international sport fishing venue in the years to come. To achieve this he wants proper planning and more and more promotion of this aspect of Salalah among the winter tourists.