Qatar’s new objective for tourism is not to have probably the most vacationers within the area – it needs vacationers who keep longer and spend extra, based on the chairman of Qatar Tourism, Saad Bin Ali Al Kharji.
“I am not trying to drive the [visitor] numbers excessive, fairly [to increase] individuals staying longer and improve the standard of tourists,” stated Al Kharji on the Qatar Financial Discussion board in Doha on Wednesday.
Qatar had 9.95 million room nights final yr, based on Qatar Tourism knowledge, referring to the full variety of rooms occupied. The nation had round 5 million complete vacationers.
“Everybody globally needs to extend their variety of guests. We’re targeted extra on room nights, although,” stated Al Kharji. “That’s crucial [metric] for Qatar.”
Al Kharji stated Qatar’s room nights grew 22% final yr.
Accor CEO and chairman Sebastien Bazin was additionally on stage with Al Kharji. Accor is a significant operator in Qatar and a member of the Qatar Funding Authority (QIA) sits on Accor’s board. Bazin agreed that rising the size of keep is essential.
“It prices a fortune to get individuals to Doha, so we’d like them to remain an additional two nights,” he stated. Bazin added that, though Qatar gained visibility when it hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2022, extra must be performed to create consciousness.
On the subject of extending holidays, Bazin stated that one in all Qatar’s shortcomings is that it does not have sufficient seashore resorts.
“The problem of this nation, and it is one, and it’s being addressed, it doesn’t have sufficient luxurious seashore resort experiences,” Bazin stated. “They constructed it in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, they’re doing it in Saudi Arabia, however Qatar is late. Many of the accommodations [in Qatar] right now don’t have nice seashore entry.”
“That is what is lacking on this nation. We have to go fast at it. We have to catch up.”
Responding to Bazin’s level, Al Kharji stated Qatar has stopped issuing new resort licenses, until they’re seashore initiatives. “We stopped licensing new accommodations in Qatar, the one accommodations I’ll give licenses to are these on the beachfront,” stated the tourism chief.
Qatar has round 40,000 resort keys and seven,000 within the pipeline, Al Kharji stated.
