Muscat: The Sultanate is witnessing a jump in the increase in the number of visitors of Asian nationalities coming this year.
According to the National Centre of Statistics and Information (NCSI), 418,000 Indian and 91,000 Chinese nationals visited the country this year, as of August-end.
However, the top nationalities visiting the Sultanate this year (as of August end) were GCC citizens (1.1 million), followed by Yemeni (96,000), Germans (93,000), and Chinese (91,000).
Nearly 2.6 million visitors arrived in the Sultanate until the end of August this year, with three to 5-star hotels receiving 1.3 million guests.
August 2023 figures:
The total number of hotel guests (3 to 5-star hotels) increased by 31 percent to 185,000 in August 2023, compared to the same month a year ago.
Of these, 37,124 were GCC nationals, 87,671 Omanis, 23,501 Asian nationalities and 15,910 Europeans.
The revenue of these hotels was RO15.9 million in August this year, compared to RO13.7 million last year, an increase of 15.7 percent.
Occupancy rates improved by 10 percent to 47.5 percent from 43.2 percent.
The number of outbound visitors dropped to 746,243 in August 2023 compared to 817, 707 last year.
Omanis (576,752) constituted most of the outbound visitors.
The number of inbound visitors increased 9.5 percent to 384,966 in August 2023, compared to 351,555 in August 2022.
The 220,467 GCC citizens constituted 57.3 percent of total inbound visitors followed by Other Arabs (40,475), Asians (93,840), and Europeans (19,010).
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
