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A lack of affordable hotel rooms is holding back the development of tourism to Oman, a senior airline official has warned.
Oman Air chief operating officer, Abdulrahman al-Busaidy, told a tourism conference in the Gulf country: “I hear some five-star hotels have occupancy of 15% and yet charge 90 rials (£145) per night.
“There is an opportunity here for the winter and summer to promote tourism. If we had decent rates we could attract people from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) who would come for a couple of days and go to Salalah.”
Oman Air has started a hotel stopover programme that provides passengers with affordable room rates, but Al-Busaidy called on more Omani hotels to join the programme.
“If hotels could invest in five rooms per night in our stopover hotels scheme, it would make a big difference,” he said.
The number of passengers using Oman Air is forecast to rise to about 4.8 million this year from 4.7 million in 2013, but less than 20% are flying directly to Oman, he told the Oman Tourism Day in association with the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference at the Bustan Palace Hotel in Oman.
Government figures show Oman has 282 hotels of all types with 22,404 bedrooms, with the majority being small and family-owned hotels and residences.
However, there are plans to build 6,000 new hotel rooms in the sultanate.