Tourism in the forefront for Oman

Oman is keen to retain its share of the tourism pie. This country is developing new hotels and resorts and bringing them to market is one of the top priorities. A number of large-scale transport infrastructure developments will also be coming to fruition over the next few years at a cost in excess of US$ 50 billion. Riding on this growth and forecasts, the annual Arabian Travel Market (ATM) road show kicked off in Muscat. The event brought together key industry players to discuss marketing opportunities to showcase Oman’s tourism ambitions. Oman is further raising awareness of its tourism-related developments at this year’s Arabian Travel Market (ATM), where exhibitors will include the Oman Ministry of Tourism, Oman Airways and for the first time, Muriya Tourism Development. This was demonstrated by figures from global research & analytics company Aranca, which revealed that as of July 2013, Oman had the largest growth in its active hotel development pipeline of all the MENA countries, up 59.9% on July 2012, with 4,577 rooms. Mark Walsh, portfolio director, Reed Travel Exhibitions said: “The Sultanate is investing in a wide-range of top-quality hotels and resorts, supported by world-class infrastructure developments spanning aviation, road, rail and maritime.” Her Excellency Maitha Al Mahrouqi, undersecretary ministry of tourism, Sultanate of Oman, said she expects hotels and restaurants to contribute five percent of Oman’s GDP by 2020, with the tourism sector’s total contribution reaching a ‘much higher figure’. Targeting international visitors is high on the agenda for Oman Air, which plans to go double-daily on its Muscat-London route and branch out into other medium- and long-haul markets when new A330 and B787 aircraft are delivered, taking its total fleet size to 50 by 2017. Source: Travel Daily