Doha: Visitors from the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) constituted 34.5% of the total tourist arrivals to Qatar in March 2022, according to figures from the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA)'s monthly newsletter.
According to the newsletter, Qatar recorded 152,772 visitor arrivals in March. Visitors from the GCC reached 52,691, compared to 18,610 in February 2022 and just 2,670 in March 2021. Hence, Qatar saw a year-on-year increase of 1,873.4% and a month-on-month increase of 183.1% in GCC visitors.
Meanwhile, visitors from Europe constituted the second largest group, with 37,490 visitors in March this year, compared to just over 20,000 in February.
There were 36,969 visitors from other Asian countries, including Oceania; 11,736 from Arab countries other than the GCC; 10,705 from the Americas; and 3,173 from non-Arab African countries in March 2022. There were 90,677 arrivals by air, 18,4885 by sea, and 43,610 by land in March.
Last month, Qatar Tourism announced that the visitor influx to Qatar in the first quarter of 2022 rose about seven times compared to the previous years.
According to the QT data, between January and March 2022, the number of visitors reached 316,000, compared to 2020 and 2021 full year figures of 581,000 and 611,000, respectively.
To further facilitate the movement of GCC nationals within the member countries, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has recently announced that citizens of Qatar and other GCC countries can use their ID cards to travel to and from Qatar and other GCC countries.
Qatar has also announced an exemption from online registration for entering Qatar, for nationals and residents of the GCC and the European Union who meet the COVID-19 immunity criteria.
Speaking at the Ramadan Ghabga, QT Chief Operating Officer Berthold Trenkel said the agency aims to increase the number of visitors to Qatar threefold, grow the travel and tourism sector’s contribution to GDP to 12% by 2030, and targets 50 new hotels to open by the end of 2022.
