Chairman of Qatar Tourism and Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive H E Akbar Al Baker
Doha: With an occupancy rate of around 65 to 70 percent, the hotel occupancy rate in Qatar remains reasonable, Chairman of Qatar Tourism and Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive H E Akbar Al Baker has said.
While addressing the press to announce the launch of the Hayya platform as a central visa application portal, Al Baker said that despite the expected lull in the hospitality sector after the country hosted the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Qatar has done better than set benchmarks.
“Immediately after the tournament (FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022), like in every other country where FIFA has taken place, the preceding months are always low in hotel occupancy rates,” Al Baker disclosed.
“We have been doing better. We are in high 65 to 70 percent occupancy, which is really not bad. But you also keep in mind that because of FIFA, we built many infrastructures in the hospitality industry. Now, it is our job to ensure that in the coming months, we ensure that the occupancy rates go up,” he added.
More than 1.4 million fans from across the globe visited Qatar for the FIFA World Cup 2022, official records state. According to Al Baker, Qatar has welcomed over a million visitors since the turn of the year. Data from the country’s Planning and Statistics Authority show that hotels in Qatar registered growth in their annual revenues in February 2023 due to a rise in visitors and guests.
“What is important is that we will aggressively promote my country vis-a-vis tourism. We have a lot of investments in infrastructure. We have theme parks, souqs, pristine beaches, and dunes. We have resorts that we are building, which are world-class, and a couple of them are already done. We have the best golfing facilities here, which are hidden from the international community,” the tourism chief noted.
Al Baker added that Qatar, the safest country in the world, aims to boost medical tourism and “aggressively promote education tourism because we have the finest universities worldwide that have campuses here”.
Qatar Tourism’s 2023 programme got off to a flyer with a successful winter campaign of activities. The events lined up for the year ensure the nation’s tourism strategy is on track to attract more than six million visitors to the country by 2030, make Qatar a leading regional and global tourist destination and raise the sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) to 12 percent by 2030.
