Oman seeks 6,000 more hotel rooms by 2020

Oman plans to add 6,000 new hotel rooms by 2020 to meet tourism demand, the country’s minister of tourism has been quoted as saying.

Times of Oman reports that the government plans to add to the country’s current 18,000 rooms with a mixture of tourism clusters backed by its economic diversification plan Tanfeedh and government agreements with investors.

“Our main priority in tourism is the hotel sector. We think we need more than 25,000 rooms by 2020. We are doing well on that. We had more than 18,000 rooms as of 2016 and we will add 6,000 more rooms by 2020,” tourism minister Ahmed bin Nasser Al Mahrezi was quoted as saying.

Many of the new rooms are expected to come in Muscat, Dhofar and Sharqiyah, considered priority locations for investment.

The minister said clusters comprising hotels, hotel apartments, hospitals, roads and other facilities built around a local community were planned in the governorates of Dhofar, Dakhikiyah, Musandam, Jabal Shams South Sharqiyah and Masirah.

Work to identify a location for the Dhofar cluster is expected to be finished by year-end after the hiring of consultants and tenders for two more – a master plan for Muscat and another for Musandam and South Sharqiyah – are expected be awarded by next month.

Oman’s Vision 2040 envisions $19bn of tourist revenues with 80,000 hotel rooms and visitor numbers rising to 11 million.

Last month government signed 11 agreements for new resorts, hotels and tourism camps.

Read: Oman signs deals for 11 new hotels, resorts