Sumptuous development: Dhofar Tourism Co plans mixed-use residential, tourism and leisure scheme
Conrad Prabhu -
MUSCAT, FEB 24 -
Dhofar Tourism Company’s (DTC) Mirbat Beach Project, a mixed-use residential, tourism and leisure development planned on Dhofar’s Mirbat coast, has been granted the coveted status of an ‘Integrated Tourism Complex’ (ITC) — a designation that, among other things, licenses the developer to offer freehold residential units for sale to foreign investors.
Mirbat Beach Project, currently under detailed design, is the latest addition to a string of ITCs in various stages of development and completion at key locations around the Sultanate. Notable schemes that operate as ITCs include Al Mouj, Jebel Sifah and Muscat Hills in Muscat Governorate and Salalah Beach Resort in Dhofar Governorate.
Plans drawn up by Dhofar Tourism Company, a publicly traded company listed on the Muscat Securities Market, envisage a lavish development that will be rolled out in five phases. The waterfront project is proposed to include a mix of villas, apartments, golf course, marina with a capacity to accommodate up to 75 boats, malls, five-star hotel offering 300 rooms and 534 furnished apartments, and an amusement zone designed for aquatic games and aerobatics. As many as 1,500 residential units are envisioned when the facility is fully built out.
The project will make an important contribution to Dhofar’s tourism industry, according to the company’s chairman, Ahmed bin Yousef bin Alawi al Ibrahim. “Dhofar Tourism Company has obtained the licence as an Integrated Tourism Complex from the Ministry of Tourism, which will have a major impact and value in attracting local and international investors,” he said. “In the context of our plans to submit the detailed drawings of the Mirbat Beach Project to the Ministry of Tourism, the company has appointed a specialised engineering bureau,” he added in the Directors Report of the company’s performance for the year ended December 31, 2016.
Dhofar Tourism’s flagship investment in the governorate is the Salalah Marriott Resort, an integrated resort at Hino in the Wilayat of Mirbat featuring a five-star hotel, chalets, spa and dive centre, among other facilities. Revenues were up 27 per cent versus the previous year — the result of agreements signed with tour operators in tourism source markets in Europe and the wider Marriott chain, according to the Chairman.
Further, to help enhance the overall appeal of the resort to tourists, the company is also weighing investments in a 500-metre-long beach boardwalk, along with a small amphitheatre and mini soccer patch, and children’s games room.
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