Dubai: Oman is positioning itself as a destination for cruise and business tourism, with a number of infrastructure-related projects underway in the country.
“There is a focus on MICE [meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions] and cruise tourism,” said Khalid Al Zadjali, director of tourism events at Oman’s tourism ministry.
Set to open by the end of 2016, the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre in Muscat will feature an exhibition hall, a conference centre, meeting rooms and four hotels, with 1,000 rooms combined.
Meanwhile, Oman’s Port Sultan Qaboos will see its commercial activities stop by the end of August, after which it will only focus on tourism-related operations. The gulf state has three ports that receive cruise passengers, including Khasab Port, the Port of Salalah and Port Sultan Qaboos. It attracted 170,000 cruise passengers in 2013.
Travel and tourism activities in Oman attracted capital investment worth 254.6 million Omani riyals (Dh934.4 million) in 2013, which is expected to grow by 11.7 per cent this year, according to the Travel and Tourism Economic Impact 2014 report for Oman, released by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). This is forecast to grow by 6.7 per cent per year over the next five years to 545.9 million riyals in 2024.
Visitors
The gulf state attracted around 2.1 million visitors in 2013. Europe and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are its top source markets.
The market currently has 14,000 hotel rooms, which is expected to grow to 19,000 by 2017, according to Al Zadjali. The Salalah Rotana Resort and the five-star Alila Jabal Akhdar recently opened in Oman.
Travel and tourism activities contributed 982.8 million riyals to the country’s GDP last year, which is expected to grow by 10.2 per cent to 1.08 billion riyals this year, according to the report. By 2024, this is forecast to grow by 5.4 per cent per year to 1.8 billion (3.9 per cent of GDP).
