Multinational professional services firm Deloitte has been commissioned to put together a tourism strategy for the City of Duqm, the vibrant nucleus of the mammoth Special Economic Zone (SEZ) under development on Oman’s Wusta coast.

The blueprint is a key component of a consultancy services study being undertaken by design, engineering and project management consultancy giant W S Atkins International on behalf of the Special Economic Zone Authority of Duqm (SEZAD).

Deloitte is among a handful of reputable consultancies subcontracted by Atkins in the delivery of a ‘Detailed Master Planning, Market and Feasibility Study, Design and Preparation of Tender Documents for the Development of the City of Duqm Phase 1’.

Explaining Deloitte’s role in the consultancy study, Grant Salter (pictured), Head of Travel, Hospitality and Leisure Advisory Services at Deloitte Middle East, said: “We are doing two pieces of work for Atkins. My piece of work is the tourism strategy for the City of Duqm. A second piece of work, which the colleagues are doing, is to review the master-plan from a financial and economic perspective, and working with Atkins to refit the master plan based on current economic circumstances.”

SEZAD has plans to build a truly world-class smart city that will stand out as unique in the region. Covering an area of 150 sq kilometres, the city will be composed of five distinctive zones encompassing existing and greenfield residential, commercial, mixed-used, logistics and tourism developments.

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