Muscat: Omani citizens can visit 79 destinations without a visa.
According to henleypassportindex.com, Omanis can travel without a visa to key Asian countries like Bangladesh, Brunei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea and Sri Lanka. In Europe, Omanis can travel visa-free to the United Kingdom, Kosovo, Serbia, Belarus and Albania. In Africa, major countries include Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Rwanda, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda. Omanis can also travel to New Zealand in the Oceania region, seven countries in the Caribbean and four countries in the Americas.
Omanis can travel to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen without visa. As per the report of the National Centre of Statistics and Information (NCSI), Omanis constituted 83.8 per cent of the outbound tourists from the Sultanate. Nearly, the number of outbound tourists from Oman increased to six million in 2018 from 3.3 million in 2017. According to the Henley Passport Index, passports are ranked according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
The ranking is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which maintains the world’s largest database of travel information. The index includes 199 passports and 227 travel destinations — including micro-states and territories. For each travel destination, if no visa is required for passport holders, then a score of 1 is created for that passport. This also applies if passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival, a visitor’s permit, or an electronic travel authority (ETA) upon entry. These visa types require no pre-departure government approval.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
