Muscat: The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism (MHT) will be exploring new source markets to get inbound tourists to the country.
Speaking to the Observer, Saada Abdullah al Harthi, director of Business Development, at MHT said that apart from the traditional markets of Germany and the UK, the ministry is now targeting Europe and Russia. "We are targeting Spain and Russia as our main markets for 2024, and 2025. We have already started activities in Russia. We had a roadshow in Russia, and now we are running a digital campaign. We are looking into opening a representative office for the Spain market and there is a family trip called the European Marhaba. We are planning a roadshow at the end of this year in Madrid and Barcelona."
It may noted that Germany has been topping the list of Europeans coming to the country over the years.
"Germany has been popular because we have direct flights and also the cruise ship passengers. Besides, there are regular charter flights."
It is one of our biggest markets in Europe, which showed an increase of 182 percent in 2023, followed by Italy with an 87 percent increase. The rest of the markets are growing. Another reason is because we have invested a lot in these markets. There's a lot of marketing activity implemented in these markets. Not only Italy and Germany, but we even have good numbers from the UK market and France, our other source markets."
The MHT will be working on ‘Developed Tour Packages in the Tourism Sector,’ along with one-on-one meetings and joint discussions between representatives of Omani tourism institutions and their European counterparts, apart from the signing of cooperation agreements.
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