Hotels in Oman experienced a positive start to the year as revenues of the three- to five-star hotels climbed up 11.5 per cent to OMR41.30 million ($107 million) in the first two months, a significant increase from the OMR37.05 million ($95.9 million) recorded in the first two months of 2017.

Hotel occupancy rates also increased by 8.8 per cent to 69.2 per cent during January-February period of 2018, against 63.7 per cent for the same period of last year, the latest monthly statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) showed.

Similarly, the total number of guests in Omani hotels in January-February period of 2018 moved up by 3.4 per cent to 275,970 from 266,817 for the same period of 2017, data showed. Among various nationalities, Europeans accounted for the maximum number of visitors at 120,650, which showed a growth of 1.3 per cent over the same two-month period of 2017. This was followed by Omani guests, which stood at 66,182. However, the number of Omani hotel guests declined by 5.5 per cent when compared to the same period of last year.

A phenomenal growth was witnessed in the case of Oceanian, African and GCC visitors, which went up by 57.5 per cent, 41.6 per cent and 32.8 per cent to 3,479, 1,969 and 29,910 guests, respectively, during the two month period. Asian visitors rose by 9 per cent to 27,421 tourists, while guests from other Arab countries fell by 16.5 per cent to 10,565 guests during the period under review. - TradeArabia News Service