Oman's Ministry of Heritage and Tourism has granted 19 licences for integrated tourism complexes, including a number of projects across the governorates of Muscat, Dhofar, South Al Sharqiyah, South Al Batinah and Musandam. 

 

On completion, these projects will boast 81 hotel facilities offering 16,576 hotel rooms, 2,552 apartment hotels and villas and 42,617 housing units, in addition to golf courses and a number of harbours, restaurants, cafes and shops.

 

The Ministry said these ITCs provide a qualitative addition to the tourism sector, including hotels, recreational and commercial facilities and real estate units, which contribute to diversifying tourism products and destinations. 

 

This is achieved through raising the number of hotel rooms, the quality of services and the recreational service facilities, as well as providing direct and indirect job opportunities, it stated.

 

The total investment volume in the ITC projects is estimated at RO4.376 billion (($11.3 billion) for complexes under implementation and RO3.12 billion ($8.1 billion) in other licensed projects that are in the pre-implementation phase, it added.

 

Azzan Qasim Al Busaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism for Tourism, said: "The integrated tourism complexes are a modern style of tourism cities that provide all services and facilities under one roof. Residents of such complexes can live with no need to leave the boundaries of the complex, where the integration of residential, tourism, recreational, sports and commercial facilities contribute to providing the foundations of a new living experience."

 

"These integrated complexes also provide the opportunity for non-Omanis to own property, constituting a mixture of different interactive cultures and providing an opportunity to attract capital and businesspeople to reside in the sultanate and provide a supportive base for the national efforts aimed at attracting investments," noted Al Busaidi.

 

He pointed out that the integrated tourism complexes have added new dimensions to the tourism sector at the levels of modern and unique architecture in parallel with the quality of the integrated infrastructure.

 

According to him, integrated tourism also offers a wide range of options in terms of tourism facilities and services, which are among the most important pillars of tourism development. 

 

Such integrated complexes have become tourism destinations for tourists to enjoy various facilities. The hotels component provides the tourism market with hundreds of hotel rooms that provide high levels of luxury and a variety of styles, he added.-TradeArabia News Service