The number of tourist arrivals in Qatar for Q1 of 2014 totalled 387,022, representing a strong nine percent year-on-year increase, reported Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA). The first quarter report was recently released. According to the report, all key indicators of tourism sector demonstrated improvement and growth from previous year comparable period.
There was a visitor increase with particularly good performance coming from within the GCC countries. Overall, GCC tourists were up by five percent, with Saudi Arabia the largest single source of visitors with 188,621 travellers and Kuwait the fastest growing with 42%. Overall visitors from other parts of the world rose by about 26%.
The average hotel occupancy rate rose from 68% to 75%, assisted by the 1.9% decrease in available rooms from 13,551 in Q1 2013 to 13,251 in Q1 2014 due to renovation-related closures. The total revenue at four and five-star hotels increased by 5.4%, reaching a total of QAR999.4m for the quarter. For the first time, QTA included three-star hotel revenue data in the quarterly report, with total revenue reaching QAR1m in a growing area of the hotel market.
The total number of hotels under construction increased to 125 properties in the first quarter 2014 from 124 at the end of 2013, corresponding to 21,812 rooms expected to be delivered.
Comments are closed.