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Travel literature archive – abu dhabi travel tips, your honest – detailed travel guide

Travel literature archive - abu dhabi travel tips, your honest - detailed travel guide

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Zeina Matars’ business culture. Arab Gulf States “in focus

The Arab culture with all its amazing features as well as at the beginning also strange characteristics is an aspect that keeps Arabia fans like me under its spell. As I have written many times, the UAE is not a typical party holiday location; People who are interested in culture in particular feel well here, and enjoy making the most of their stay in their predominant culture during their stay in order to learn as much as possible about the country visited. Anyone who is open to the traditions cultivated there, and who respects them from the beginning, will perhaps – and therefore also the locals who live after them – even someday even understand them.

Those who travel more frequently in the Arab world, with a bit of luck, will gradually learn automatically to deal with the cultural habits of the people there. However, if you are unexpectedly business related to this region, understandably, is initially mostly at a loss. How do I deal with Arabs or with the inhabitants of the Gulf States in business? How do you tick? What do you expect from me?? These and similar questions immediately pervade the involved person, because even without knowing the details, there is an implicit knowledge that There are certainly striking cultural differences that, of course, also have a strong impact on the relationship between customers and service providers and between employees and managers, if either side has Arab and other European roots.

There come Counselors like Dr. Zeina Matar’s recently published book “Business Culture. Arab Gulf States “ right. I read it (thanks again to the CONBOOK Verlag for providing a review copy!) and would like to introduce it here. Even if you are not dealing with Arabia on business: The book allows a revealing expedition through the mindset of the Gulf Arab cultures. Based on the scientific approach that European cultural standards in Arabia have a completely different or even no value, the author gives an interesting and practice-oriented insight into the topic of business with golf Arabs. One learns, what lies behind the inflationary phrase “no problem”, when the so-called three-times rule should be used and why relationship management in this region of the world is the alpha and omega of a good business partnership. The treatment of questions iHow religion plays into business, which must be taken into account, so that all those involved can keep their faces and the effects of working with teams that are jumbled together from expats of all nations, were for me the highlights of the reading.

It is important to know, though, that it is at “business culture. “Arab Persian Gulf States” is a compact work that takes the most important aspects in a flash to give the reader a first overview. However, you do not get really deep into the subject matter, and in some places a fastidious or especially inquisitive reader might want a little more detail. Three examples: The author generalises that alcohol is available in the UAE, without mentioning that he is not served in the Emirate of Sharjah. Furthermore, I would have wished that the special role of Saudi Arabia is portrayed a little more clearly, after all, even entering the country even for business travelers is a bureaucratic feat of strength beyond compare. Finally, I have to say that I want to understand the demolition-style passages to each country or even Islam as a challenge at most, read on. For me personally, this amount of input for fraternal after-work small talk simply does not seem sufficient.

Still, I have to say really appreciatively, that the book on its only 100 pages (perfect for stressed business people!) in a clear form on the major differences in the minds and actions of the Arabs draws attention and there are tips on how to act as a foreigner so as not to offend and, secondly, to correctly interpret the other’s signals in words and actions – two core competences for the preparation and maintenance of successful business relationships! So my conclusion: at “Business culture. Arab Gulf States “is a introductory reading that every beginner should have read!

By the way: The structure of the book has impressed me very much! So you want a work that should convey knowledgeIn the text are links with code numbers, under which further information can be called up in the Internet and at the end of each chapter there is a summary with the most important Dos and Don’ts. The whole thing gets loosened up again through interviews in which experts with on-site experience have their say. The collection of addresses at the end is certainly worth the gold, which should make the search for important contact points a lot easier for beginners. An imaginative gimmick is the enclosed bookmark printed with key learning content!

You want to know more about the new release from the CONBOOK publishing house? Click here for the official press release!

New Release: Compact Guide to the Golf Arabian Business Culture

The Gulf States are Germany’s fourth largest overseas market and the Gulf Cooperation Council the EU’s most important trading partner in the Arab world. The CONBOOK publishing house, Meerbusch, now provides a guidebook, which puts all the unwritten intercultural rules of conduct for business relations with the Arab Gulf States on paper. It was written by a proven business relationship expert with Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The guide presents all the important aspects for business relations with the six states, after an introduction to the specifics of the Gulf Arabian business culture and a vivid description of the differences to common patterns of behavior. Compact and yet in sufficient detail describes Coach Dr. Zeina Matar all relevant topics, such as the right approach for a German-Arab-Arabian contact, the course and special features of a bi-national meeting, the most effective style in intercultural negotiations or aspects of employee motivation and conflict management.

Dr. Zeina Matar has been working since 2001 as an intercultural consultant for European companies seeking business relations with Arab countries. Zeina Matar is a lecturer at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University and has previously written the guides “Doing Business with Gulf Arabs” and “Doing Business with Levantine Arabs” in the series Diversophy.

“Business culture compact” is a new series in the CONBOOK publishing house, which offers its readers binational business expertise in pocket jacket format. Whether to refresh a coaching, as an independent instrument for the acquisition of intercultural knowledge or as a reminder before an important meeting, The individual volumes of the series present all essential aspects for a sustainable and successful contact with business partners from abroad.

Here is my review of the book!

Wilfred Thesiger traversing the Rub al-Khali

Those who can not let go of the fascinating Rub al-Khali will, of course, be too hungry Literature about this desert, which not only provides interesting background information, but also bridges the time until the next trip. During my research, I came across Wilfred Thesiger’s travelogue “The Fountains of the Desert”, in which the adventurer describes his two major crossings of the Empty Quarter.

I must confess that I needed a little bit longer to read the book, because it has its lengths … It is not a novel with a continuous tension, but rather a sober-looking report, from the retrospective of one Traveler has been written between 1947-1950 on a scientific mission in Rub al-Khali was and photographed there as well.

A pity I found that the two desert crossings even a small part of the book. Most of the remaining chapters deal with preparation and follow-up. Of course, the desert fan gets its money’s worth here as well, because these sections are basically about desert areas, which make up a large part of the Arabian Peninsula, and their inhabitants.

The endless descriptions of the various rival desert tribes, whose hostility (and towards “infidels” anyway) often made traveling much more difficult for Thesiger than the hostile nature of the desert itself, seemed a little tiring to me. At some point, unfortunately, I also had all the tribal designations lost the overview. Yet: An authentic travel destination Of course, such information should not be spared.

Thesiger’s greatest achievement: total dedication to the desert and its inhabitants

And basically it gets exciting when Thesiger and his little Bedouin group put their lives on the line, because they disregard transit bans or still obtain a permit with a lot of diplomatic skill or persuade a leader to lead them safely through his tribal areas , Even if the way to the next well does not seem to cope, the companions of Thesiger but only put their fate in Allah’s hands, one fancers with.

In short: Thesiger has done a lot, albeit no pioneering work. However, he was one of the first scientists together with Bertram Thomas and Harry St. John Philby, who wanted to map the Rub-al-Khali in more detail and to better explore it. More than once, he has risked his life on these expeditions. The special thing about his journey is not so much the WHAT, but the HOW. It is always important to him Eye level to his Bedouin companions, for which he takes infinite efforts.

Much of the magic that Thesiger has felt in his travels, but you read in a few subordinate clauses as if by chance. It is about the self-sacrificing nature and the original way of life of the characterful Bedouins, about the quiet mourning over the decay of an old culture through the progressing industrialization in the desert and of course about a breathtakingly beautiful scenery, who captured the investigator and made him feel increasingly uncomfortable in Western civilization:

“Hour after hour, day after day, we moved there, and nothing changed. The desert and the empty sky always met at the same distance. Time and space were one. Around us a silence in which only the winds played, and a purity that was infinitely far removed from the human world.“

Thesiger, Wilfred: The fountains of the desert. With the Bedouins by the unknown Arabia. Piper, 9th edition, March 2010.

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