Muscat, March 9 - The Sur Al Hadid Beach Carnival that attracted nearly over 40,000 visitors over three days, including weekend, will only get bigger in the coming years, according to organisers. Speaking to the Observer, Sarah Najeeb al Balushi, one of the main organisers, said, “We approximately received around 15,000 visitors on Thursday and 20,000 on Friday. We expected the rush to be slightly less on the third day since Sunday is a working day.” She added for the carnival to be an annual affair, we need to analyse the results of this first edition.
“This event was organised at a short notice after we got the approval in late January. Seeb Waterfront is well-developed in terms of facilities and also more spacious, especially for traffic management. Other popular waterfronts at Muttrah and Qurum have space constraints.” Sarah said,
“We need to have a look at utilising the beach facilities more effectively in the next editions to offer a wider variety of entertainment options to the visitors.” Sarah is the founder and organiser of Muscat Eat that successfully conducted the two editions of Muscat Food Festival.
“We should not rely only on Muscat Festival to make this city vibrant and more such events should be organised, depending on the weather conditions,” said a coordinator from Muscat Municipality.
The first-ever beach carnival is driven by the joint efforts of the key partners, as part of the Implementation, Support and Follow-up Unit (Tanfeedh) initiatives to boost the local tourism through better utilisation of the beaches to host unique tourism events. The event also aims to encourage the participation of local SMEs, local community members and institutions.
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