9% fall in khareef visitors in the first six weeks: NCSI

The number of Omani visitors stood at 218,889 this year compared to 239,428 in 2016. There were 47,698 GCC tourists other than Omanis

Muscat - There has been a 9.3 per cent fall in the number of visitors in the first six weeks of khareef season at 301,991 till August 1, according to statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

Of the total, 72.5 per cent were Omanis and there was an 8.6 per cent fall in the number of Omani visitors compared to last year.

Visitors from GCC countries excluding Omanis stood at 15.8 per cent of the total. Asians formed 8.2 per cent of the total visitors at the end of sixth week.

Of the total visitors, 75.2 per cent came by land routes and 24.8 per cent by flights. The number of Omani visitors stood at 218,889 this year compared to 239,428 in 2016. There were 47,698 GCC tourists other than Omanis compared to 50,550 during the same period last year.

Visitors from other Arab nations stood at 8,020 compared to 8,229 last year. Visitors from Asian countries declined to 24,720 this year from 32,951 last year while the number of European tourists increased to 1,625 this year from 1,199 last year.

Visitors from other nations also increased this year to 1,039 compared to 740 during the same period last year. The total number of GCC visitors until August 1 was 266,587 compared to 289,978 in 2016. Of the total, 218,889 were Omanis, 27,064 from the UAE, 13,596 from Saudi Arabia, 2,286 from Bahrain, 2,420 from Kuwait and 2,332 from Qatar.

Tourists from other Arab nations stood at 8,020 this year compared to 8,229 last year. Of the total, there were 993 Syrians, 1,646 Egyptians, 571 Jordanians, 314 Lebanese, 82 Tunisians, 315 Iraqis and 4,099 from other nations in the region. Of the 24,720 visitors from Asian nations, 13,469 were from India, 5,092 from Pakistan, 686 from the Philippines and 5,473 from other Asian countries.

This year at the end of the sixth week there were 1,625 European tourists compared to 1,199 last year. Of these, 631 were from the UK compared to 515 visitors in 2016. There were 204 Germans, 140 French and 54 Spanish tourists among the Europeans. There were also 596 visitors from other European nations compared to 388 last year.

From the Americas, there were 630 visitors compared to 444 last year. Of the total, 402 visitors were from the US, 127 from Canada and 101 from other nations in the region. From Africa, there were 286 visitors this year compared to 172 last year, 122 from the Oceania.

However, there was a seven per cent fall in the number of visitors during the sixth week this year compared to the same period of 2016.