Doha: Qatar Tourism held a townhall meeting with its private sector partners, with wide participation from members from hospitality, destination management and tourism companies. The meeting witnessed the participation of representatives from private sector entities.
During the townhall, Qatar Tourism addressed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism, whereby the halt of all travel and tourism resulted in a 1.3 trillion dollar decrease in revenue globally. During this time, visitor arrivals to the Middle East decreased by 74%, making it the third largest drop in visitor numbers after Asia Pacific and Africa.
Despite this significant drop in visitor numbers, Qatar Tourism highlighted the performance of the country’s hospitality sector, which saw a limited decrease in revenues – by 18% making it among the best performing country in the sector compared with major tourist cities around the world. Even with the increase in hotel accommodation supply in Qatar, the performance of the hospitality sector showed marked improved during 2021, with occupancy rates reaching 61% until end August, an increase of 7% compared to the same period last year.
Qatar Tourism’s Berthold Trenkel spoke of the country’s varied offerings, of its scenic landscapes, luxury resorts, heritage and cultural attractions, world-class museums, traditional markets, and Hamad International Airport, the best airport for 2021. Rooted in Service Excellence, these will help drive visitation to the country.
At the townhall, Trenkel outlined Qatar Tourism’s marketing plan for the upcoming period, which focuses on attracting visitors from 15 priority markets. It will further target audiences based on six demand spaces: 1) Active holidays, 2) Relax & Rejuvenate, 3) Sun, sea and sand, 4) Cultural enthusiast, 5) Luxury city breaks and 6) Romantic getaways. Through this, the entity will work towards tripling the number of visitors and tourism spend by 2030, doubling the number of jobs in the sector, and increasing tourism’s contribution to the GDP to reach 12% by 2030.
During the meeting, Qatar Tourism’s structure was shared to enable the private sector to better interact and communicate directly with the various departments and to accelerate the growth of tourism.
It is worth mentioning that Qatar Tourism has initiated a series of working meetings with various stakeholders in the tourism sector in Qatar, starting with tour guides in May, and will continue to collaborate with various private and governmental institutions to elevate the tourism sector in the country.
