Muscat: The Ministry of Tourism of the Sultanate of Oman, along with 24 tourism establishments of the country, will take part in the World Travel Market (WTM), one of the biggest international events of the travel industry, which began in London on Monday. The Omani delegation will be headed by Ahmed bin Nasser al Mehrzi, Minister of Tourism. The three-day event, which will conclude on November 7, is second largest exhibition of travel and tourism industry of the world. The Ministry of Tourism and other tourism establishments of the country are participating in the event to promote and aggressively market tourist sites in Oman.
The Sultanate is participating in this global tourism event to open wider horizons for marketing its tourism destinations and services. This would also give it an opportunity to learn from experiences of various other participating countries and international tourism organisations.
This event is expected to give an opportunity to build relationships and find opportunities for direct cooperation between various Omani tourism establishments and their international counterparts. This would help in attracting investments in Omani tourism sector which is constantly growing and opening promising opportunities.
Al Mehrzi said: “The Sultanate wants to participate in the World Travel Market London every year as it is the second largest tourism fair in the world. Various organisations, entities, institutions, establishments, decision makers, government officials, major entrepreneurs and investors participate in this event.” The number of tourists who visited the Sultanate from the British market in 2016 were 137,170. Their number reached to 143,224 in 2017 which is a growth of 4.4 per cent over the previous year. The number of British tourists who visited Oman till the end of September in 2018 has already reached to 114,006.
Al Mehrzi said that the growing number of tourists coming to the Sultanate from the United Kingdom was encouraging the promotion of Oman tourism.
This global forum will give an opportunity to the institutions of the Omani tourism sector to keep themselves abreast of the latest developments and trends of the markets and the requirements of tourists. It will also help them introduce projects and services like opening of new Muscat International Airport, new hotels and electronic visa facilities to tourists who are coming to Oman from different countries.
Al Mehrzi said that the ministry, as part of Omani strategy for tourism and related promotional plans, has carried out studies for a number of targeted tourism markets, in cooperation with specialised international institutions. In the light of the outcome of these studies, it has developed mechanisms of entering into these markets and ascertained what the tourists of each of these markets require.
He appreciated that the establishments and institutions of the tourism sector of Oman have shown their enthusiasm in participating in such a major international tourism event. It shows that there was effective partnership between public and private sectors of tourism in the country.
The Oman pavilion will have 24 companies and establishments. Two of these companies (Al Zahabia and Al Furat) are supported by Riyada. Muscat Municipality will also be present to promote Muscat Festival 2019 and Tour of Oman.
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