​Total revenue of Omani hotels in three-to-five-star category rose by 8.7 percent to OMR131.96 million in the first eight months of 2018 from OMR121.45 million for the same January-August period of last year.

Hotel occupancy rates also increased by 3.4 percent to 56.5 percent during January-August period of 2018, against 54.6 percent for the same period of 2017, shows the latest monthly statistics released by the Centre.  However, the total number of guests in Omani hotels in January-August period of 2018 declined by 5.3 percent to 942,514 from 995,541 for the same period of 2017. Among various nationalities, Europeans constituted maximum number of visitors at 317,444 but fell by 13.6 percent compared to the same eight-month period of 2017. This was followed by Omani guests, who stood at 260,160. However, the number of Omani hotel guests declined by 5.8 percent when compared to the same period of last year.

Likewise, tourists from GCC countries fell by 5.5 percent to 136,869 guests in the first eight months of 2018, from 144,766 for the same period of last year. A phenomenal growth was witnessed in the case of African, Asian and Oceanian visitors, which went up by 33 percent, 13.7 percent and 19.6 percent to 8,685, 118,462 and 9,713 guests, respectively, during the eight-month period, shows the provisional data released by NCSI. American visitors rose by 3.4 percent to 34,185 tourists, while guests from other Arab countries fell by 4.6 percent to 41,261 guests during the period under review.  Omani hotels received 1.53 million guests and the hotels generated a total revenue of OMR194.66 million in 2017, added the NCSI report.

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