POSTED: 2012-02-19 23:02:19
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications
DOHA: The Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) marked a dramatic increase in tourism up over 50% in 2011 over 2010. The Gulf Times reports that QTA counts that over 845,630 tourists originating from the Gulf region traveled to Qatar this last year.
International visitors rose 12% also last year boosting hotel occupancy by 19.5% and giving four and five star hotels QR5 billion in revenue. This also is partly due to eight new hotels that opened up in Qatar last year making the number of hotels 74 and rooms counting 11,341 well over 5,974 of the year prior.
The QTA attributes the biggest rise in the numbers as coming from 58% Asian visitors, then Arab countries at 19.13% and finally Europeans at 15% traveling into the Gulf State.
QTA head Ahmed Al-Nuaimi attributed 72% of the overall tourism as business related to the area.
The rise in tourism is also attributed to the continued focus on bringing in high level sports events to the area. Last year the Asian Football Cup drew a large following and helped to contribute to the statistics as well as a number of other high level events in the area.
Occupancy rates in hotels maintained a steady 59% all year round with January and February holding the highest numbers.
In 2010 Qatar aggressively lobbied to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and landed the nomination in December of that year. This impacted local tourism in a huge way as the country will have to gear up for the massive onslaught of tourism that will be generated through the event.
As Doha now bids for the 2020 Olympic Games this could be another major life changing factor for the small country and leave a huge legacy opening the door for many other elite sports events to come.
Al-Nuaimi said in a statement, “Tourism is central to Qatar’s vision of creating a diversified and sustainable economy.
“These strong results can be attributed to the growth of the hospitality industry, especially in the area of hotels and resorts as well as our strategy to target travellers transiting to stop in Doha.
This 2012 year appears to also be a strong year fueling the growth and he added, “We will see 3,500 new hotel rooms come online with the addition of new hotels.
“We will also continue our successful efforts at marketing Qatar as a destination as well as bringing large scale events and conferences to Doha. We will also build on these results with a promotional campaign later this year targeting the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries.”
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