Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
clear sky
weather
OMAN
25°C / 25°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Khareef readiness reviewed

1019702
1019702
minus
plus

By Kaushalendra Singh — SALALAH: May 22 - The Directorate of Tourism in Dhofar reviewed the preparedness of the hotels in Salalah and its adjoining areas for the ensuing Khareef (monsoon) season. It directed all the big and small hotels to maintain the best possible cleanliness and services during the season, the festivity for which is likely to pick up soon after the Ramadhan.


The one-month Ramadhan is likely to start in the last week of May, giving good reasons to believe that the Eid holidays would coincide with the onset of Khareef , which falls officially on June 21and continues till the end of September.


Marhoon Said Mubark al Amri, Director General of Tourism in Dhofar, reviewed the broad aspects of hospitality, cleanliness, hygiene, security and safety in the hotels in a meeting with their general managers.


Al Amri thanked the hoteliers for their support to the French FAM (familiarisation) trip that Salalah hosted last week. “That left a positive impact on the tour operators and travel agents, as they were impressed with service and hospitality they received by all the hotels,” he said.


He put stress on attending the guests’ complaints in right spirit and exhorted them to resolve the grievances before they came to the knowledge of the Directorate of Tourism and social media.


Al Amri directed the GMs to work on the findings of the recently conducted inspections by the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) officials and asked them to have the food and beverages menus both in Arabic and English.


“Make sure that all tour leaders in the hotels who are offering excursions to the guests and wear name tags stating that they are official tour leaders… equally important is support to the local taxi drivers and the identity details of the tour leaders and the taxi drivers should be there in the hotels,” he said.


He exhorted them to keep generators and boilers etc in standby and convince their owners to build or add more rooms as demand for Salalah is building up day by day and hotel rooms are in short supply.


Among the additional and mandatory services suggested by the MoT were valet parking and provisions of life guards at the swimming pools.


Mehdi Othmani, GM of Hilton Salalah Resort, appreciated the suggestions made by the MoT and said, “Khareef visitors during 2016 were 653,000 and we are looking at increasing this number. Personally I believe, we can easily increase this number by 20 per cent as Salalah has everything which is needed for an international destination including leisure, culture, security and infrastructure.”


Manuel Levonian, General Manager, Crowne Plaza Salalah Resort, agreed with MoT’s suggestion to have a nice front office equipped with hospitable representatives. To the suggestions of maintaining right documents of the tourists/ visitors on arrival, Levonian said, “we strictly follow all administrative guidelines.”


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon