Competitive Advantages of Tourism and Hotel Business in the Countries of the Arab East (the Case of the UAE, Egypt and Tunisia)

The tourism and hotel business in the Arab East countries is presented in the research from the perspective of competitive advantages selection and evaluation. Among advantages the following factors can be distinguished: the presence of the sea coast or bay, favorable climate conditions, unique natural resources, cultural and historical monuments, developed tourist infrastructure, a variety of tourist high-level services, discounts and others. Competitive advantages can be assigned as natural, economic, infrastructural and national factors and have an impact on the development of countries through the promotion of entrepreneurship, job creation, the maintenance of law, order and security, the preservation of cultural heritage and environmental protection. This study outlines the dynamics of tourism industry indicators development in the region, assesses the tourism and hotel market attractiveness in terms of service quality, net cost, marketing and transaction costs, market share and brand awareness. It is determined that the tourism and hotel market in such countries as the UAE, Morocco, Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, can be considered as attractive. There is a high correlation between the level of GDP and tourism competitive advantages in the countries. It is shown that the key factors in the formation of tourism and hotel business competitive advantages are political stability and security guarantee. The events of the "Arab spring" extremely adversely affected the industry, even in those countries where there were no uprisings and civil unrest. The solution of the tourist attraction problem in the Arab East countries can be seen as an application of strategies for creation and development of competitive advantages: focusing on the reasons for negative events, the strategy of "audience", "messages" and the transformation of liabilities into assets.