Qatar’s tourism sector is growing rapidly reflecting that the proactive steps taken by the authorities are yielding results.
Latest figures have shown that the number of tourists coming to Qatar have increased. Another key takeaway is the diversification in terms of source of visitors as the tourists are coming from different countries and geographies. According to the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics data released recently, over 1.8 million people visited Qatar last year, driven by strong inflow of travelers from countries in Asia and Europe.
Of the total visitors, 41 percent were from ‘other Asia’ region while 29 percent of the visitors were from Europe in 2018. Over 753,000 visitors were from countries in ‘other Asia region while 528,333 visitors came from Europe. A little over 200,000 visitors came from GCC countries, taking the share of visitors of these countries to 11 percent in total visitors inflow during 2018.
The visitors from Americas accounted for nine percent of the total visitor arrivals as 161,162 visitors from Americas travelled to Qatar last year. Share of visitors from ‘other Arab countries’ to Qatar was seven percent while the share of visitors from ‘other African countries’ was three percent in 2018. Visitor arrivals measure non-residents travelling to Qatar on a short-term basis for all purposes. It includes arrivals at borders under 15 different visit visa classes, including all business and leisure visa types while excluding work visas.
The increase in number of travellers in the country shows that Qatar has emerged as a favourite destination for global tourist. Qatar has identified tourism as one of five priority sectors for achieving economic diversification and several steps were taken to increase tourist inflow in the country.
Among the most important developments was the Emiri decree to establish Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC). The council took significant efforts in diversifying visitor source markets and promoting Qatar as an attractive tourism destination. In 2018, six representative offices were opened in three of the world’s largest visitor source markets - China, India and Russia.
In November 2018, QNTC had launched Qatar’s first global destination campaign. The year 2018 also witnessed the launch of the Al Enna project which covers an area of 6 million metre square in Sealine and Khor AlAdaid and aims to enhance the visitor’s coastal and desert experience. The Al Enna project is an initial phase of a comprehensive plan to develop the region over a five-year period. The plan entails the development of roads, beaches, camp infrastructure and the region in general.
With all these measures taken in the past, the number of tourists heading to Qatar will only increase further.
