Oman's inbound tourist spend rose 15% in 2015

Muscat: Inbound tourism expenditure in the Sultanate registered a healthy growth of 14.9 per cent in 2015.
It stood at OMR288.2 million, compared with OMR250.9 million in 2014, according to the latest bulletin issued by the National Center for Statistics & Information (NCSI).
Accommodation accounted for 38.1 per cent of the total inbound tourist expenditure at OMR109.9 million, while air travel accounted for 25.7 at OMR74 million.
Food and beverages had a share of 14.8 per cent of the total inbound tourist expenditure at OMR42.7 million, while shopping contributed 11 per cent at OMR31.7 million.
Internal transport cost accounted for 6.1 per cent of the total inbound tourist expenditure at OMR17.4 million during the year. Expenditure per visitor stood at OMR110.1, the NCSI report has said.
The share of tourism in Oman’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at 2.8 per cent in 2015, and the share is expected to climb to 6 per cent by the year 2040. Overall, th Sultanate’s tourism balance showed a deficit of OMR199.7 million in 2015.
Giving details on the outbound tourism expenditure, the report has indicated that air travel constituted 25.8 per cent of the outbound expenses at OMR125.8 million.
Of that expenditure, accommodation accounted for 17 per cent at OMR83 million.
The share of food and beverages’ share stood at 14.6 per cent at OMR71.3 million, while external transport accounted for 4 per cent of the outbound expenditure at OMR19.4 million.
Further, 24.3 per cent of the outbound tourist expenditure was accounted for by shopping at OMR118.4 million.
The report also showed that 25.3 per cent of the internal tourism expenditure in 2015 was accounted for by specific tourism items including shopping, while 16.4 per cent was spen on paying for accommodation.
Air transport accounted for 16 per cent of the internal tourism expenditure.