Travelling the Middle East will be the easiest it’s ever been

Relaxed visa requirements, shifting politics, and new transport connections promise to draw more visitors to the region.

Although the coronavirus pandemic has forced travel to a halt and slammed shut international borders, unprecedented reforms taking place in the Middle East will make travelling around the region easier than ever before, once the world opens up again. Relaxed visa requirements, shifting politics, and new transport connections promise to draw more visitors to the region, which before the pandemic had the fastest-growing rate of international arrivals and double the global average, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization. Because of the pandemic and the piecemeal, country-by-country developments, this huge shift across the Middle East has gone mostly unnoticed.