A fantastic FIFA World Cup football matches, Arab and Qatari hospitality to experience, and a plethora of activities, sites, museums, resorts and desert safari, Qatar is a hotbed for tourists.
Qatar Tourism had published figures earlier this year showing that it had made a stellar recovery from the pandemic-induced setbacks in terms of visitor numbers. The statistics said international arrivals from January-June this year stood at 729,000 – 19 percent more than the 611,000 number it clocked for the full year of 2021.
Qatar’s tourism sector has also been projected to benefit from the influx of fans for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, with as many as 1.2 million fans expected.
Yesterday, Qatar Tourism data revealed that the number of visitors to the country during October to nearly 180,000 a six-year high.
Throughout 2022, visitors have steadily increased month on month, and the latest October figures exceeded pre-pandemic numbers by nearly a third (32% more than in October 2017).
Visitors from the GCC made up the leading source of all international visitors (over a third at 33%) to the country in October. At the same time, October saw a 10% increase from the prior month in the number of non-GCC tourists, at 66% of the total an increase of 10%. Non-GCC arrivals hailed mainly from India (13%), the UK (4%) and the USA (3%).
Commenting on the latest arrival figures, the Head of the Promotion Sector at Qatar Tourism, Haya Al-Noaimi, said Qatar is delighted to see so many people from around the globe keen to experience all it Qatar has to offer.
According to Al Noaimi, the line-up of events, openings and festivities that have been happening across the country over the last couple of months have been simply unmatched, and Qatar looks forward to taking this positive spirit beyond December 18.
As October figures show promises, the current World Cup has undoubtedly also been a positive for the country. In the future, Qatar expects to attract six million visitors annually by 2030, and several campaigns and promos have been launched globally to achieve this.
Recently, Qatar has opened several attractive spots, including the Doha Winter Wonderland on Al Maha Island and the Fuwairit Kite Beach resort, allowing visitors to indulge in scuba diving, parasailing, snorkelling – and kitesurfing for nine months of the year. Another major attraction is the Qetaifan Island North, which currently hosts a fan zone for the World Cup and has floating hotels, a water park and beach clubs.
