Muscat: Ahmed bin Nasser al Mehrazi, Minister of Tourism, said the tourism sector contributed RO 912 million to the economy by the end of 2018, compared to RO 728 million in 2017 with an annual growth rate of 25 per cent.
In an interview with Al Roya Newspaper, the minister said the tourism sector in the Sultanate contributed 2.9 per cent to the gross domestic product by the end of 2018, compared to 2.6 per cent in 2017.
He pointed out that 302 million people visited the Sultanate in 2018, expressing the hope that the Sultanate will become a major platform for cruise ships tours in the near future, especially with the completion of the development of Port Sultan Qaboos, to achieve a significant change in the tourism sector.
The minister said that the work is under way to complete the remaining stages of the integrated tourism complexes projects that have been opened in the last period. He added that most of those projects has been partially opened. He pointed out that 45 new hotels were opened in 2018, bringing the total number to 412 by the end of 2018 compared to 367 establishments by the end of 2017, a change of 12 per cent which increased the number of hotel rooms from 20,581 to 22,182. — ONA
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