Tony Walsh

Tony Walsh has spent more than thirty years living and working across the Arabian Peninsula, making him one of the few English-language travel writers to have explored the region from the inside out. From 1986 to 2016 he was based in Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while travelling widely through Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. He speaks, reads and writes Arabic to a good working level, and his books grow out of long residence rather than brief visits.

Before turning to writing, Tony built and ran businesses on both sides of the Arabian Sea. In the United Kingdom he was General Manager with an upmarket private retail company whose flagship store stood on London’s New Bond Street, a couple of shops down from Sotheby’s. In Arabia he managed BHS franchise department stores in Saudi Arabia, created his own concept stores in Oman and operated the Disney retail franchise there. He has handled everything from staff management to stock buying and logistics, importing goods directly from manufacturers in full-container loads and by air freight—experience that grounded him in the everyday realities of Gulf commerce and city life.

That commercial career evolved naturally into tourism. Tony founded an inbound tour company specialising in up-market cultural journeys in Oman, the UAE, Qatar and Yemen, and he has led many bespoke itineraries for discerning travellers and corporate groups. He has also served as a lecturer on board small expedition ships in Arabian waters, delivering on-board talks during voyages of up to two weeks between ports such as Doha and Salalah, often calling at harbours the big cruise liners ignore. When tourism collapsed after 11 September 2001, he drew on the same regional knowledge to deliver a series of construction contracts for the United States Air Force at its bases on Masirah Island and at Seeb North (Muscat), before returning to high-end inbound tourism as the sector recovered.

Tony’s expertise has been recognised within the region itself. Oman’s Ministry of Tourism commissioned him to write eleven regional booklets, produced separately in both English and Arabic, and fully funded his coffee-table book on Oman’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites, illustrated with his own photography. He has written for in-flight magazines and regional newspapers, as well as producing specialist material for international readers interested in Oman and Arabia.

Since 2016 Tony has focused on distilling three decades of first-hand experience into books, advisory work and occasional specialist tours. His writing aims to explain Oman and the wider Arab world as they are—complex, compelling and changing—combining historical context, political background and close observation of daily life. Above all, he writes as someone who has lived the region rather than simply passed through it.