The brand promise of Oman. Delivered?

What comes to your mind first when you think of Oman?  What colors, feelings, scents do you associate with Oman? How would Oman look like had it been a person? What are you most proud of as an Omani when you think of your country? These are all important question from tourism and country brand perspective.

Most likely the Brand Oman Management Unit has done its homework before coming up with the country branding strategy and collateral.

According to them the brand has the following core elements:

• turtle, ocean wave and life - navy blue color wave (in the logo)
• mountains - light blue siluette of the mountain 
• dhow - dark blue shape reflecting the tip of the dhow boat
• frankincense - light green shape

Not a bad call at all. These are pretty much the unique features the country has to offer.  Like with any brand the promise has to be kept. Any tourist visiting the country should find it difficult to leave without unwillingly meet most of these features. Is that really the case today?

We have so many museums, but we don't have (or I am not aware of) a House of Frankincense where the whole story of this great natural product is presented in a creative and interactive way. Visitors could experience and understand that importance of frankincense in the history of Omanis. 

Same could be said with the Dhow. There are some initiatives in Sur and maybe elsewhere, but an interesting and creative Dhow heritage center is yet to be done. This should be by the sea and include several interactive features for visitors. Would be a very nice and challenging work for any museum and visitor attraction planner.

The mountains and wadis do most of job themselves, however some visitors centers in the most popular mountain destinations (Jebel Ahkdar, Jebel Shams, Wadi Bhani Khalid, Wadi Sham etc.) could do a lot of justice for these marvelous places and help protect their environment. And offer jobs for locals.

There is an  Ocean and sea life museum (Aquarium and Marine Science & Fisheries Centre) at the  Marina Bandar Al Rowdha in Sidab but it's somewhat outdated, could really  take a nice revamp and some new features that would worth the trip from Muscat for any visitor.