Oman tourism: Khareef visitor spend up 30% in 2016

Muscat: Khareef Salalah visitors spent OMR65,663,911 in 2016, a growth of 30 per cent over OMR50,421,425 they spent in 2015, according to the bulletin issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information.
The bulletin added that the expenditure on leisure constituted 91.3 per cent or about OMR60 million of the total expenditure compared to 4.9 per cent on business tourism.
As per the same bulletin, the expenditure on accommodation constituted 35.8 per cent of the total compared to 22.9 per cent on food and beverage and 21.8 per cent on transportation, leisure and shopping.
The average expenditure by Kuwaitis was the highest at OMR285 per person, followed by Qataris with OMR279 per person. The average expenditure of Asians was the lowest with OMR62.8 per person.
The statistics of the Central Bank of Oman showed that the cash withdrawals through ATM during the Khareef season increased by 7 per cent during July 2016 to hit OMR70.9 million compared to OMR66.2 million in June 2016.
The number of withdrawals transactions during July, August and September 2016 stood at OMR687,000, OMR752,000 and OMR612,000 respectively.
The number of visitors increased by 26.8 per cent to 652,986 compared to 514,777 during 2015 season.
The Omani visitors constituted 70.5 per cent or 460,345 of the total number of visitors, followed by the Gulf visitors with 17.5 per cent or 114,107 and the Asian 55,904 and other Arab 17,333.
The number of visitors from European nationalities stood at 3,499 compared to 798 non-European foreign visitors.
In all, 93.9 per cent of the visitors visited Salalah for leisure to enjoy the charming weather in the Governorate of Dhofar during Khareef season. 2.8 per cent of the visitors came for business and 2.7 per cent for visiting family and friends.
As much as 78.7 per cent of the visitors came through the land point compared to 83.9 per cent during 2015 season with Omanis on top of the list of users for the land point (89.8 per cent) followed by persons of Asian nationalities (8.5 per cent).
Eighty-eight thousand visitors came through Oman Air domestic flights and 51,000 visitors used international flights.
The petrol stations’ sales increased by 78.7 per cent with the demand for petrol staying at 203 million liter of fuel. The hotel revenues reached the peak in September 2016 to hit OMR1.8 million. The inflation rate for hotels and restaurants during July stood at 12.8 per cent.