Offering a rich history and an impressive diversity of tourism attraction of all kinds, Yemen, located at the very south of the Arabian Peninsula, has potential to be one of the key countries in the tourist industry in the Arab region. In the years from 1997 to 2010, the average annual growth rate of international visitors was 23%, peaking in 2008 at 405,000 tourist arrivals, most of them from the Gulf States. Although domestic tourism has expanded steadily in recent years, tourism in Yemen is still a virgin sector contributing only 3% to the GDP, as it still faces many obstacles such as a lack of tourist facilities.

In 2010, more than 80% of the 1,479 hotels in Yemen were one-star category and below. In addition, ...