Sultanate scores high on safety for tourists

Oman needs to work on air connectivity and offer more entertainment options for business travellers, as per a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for 2017. It may be also noted that, Oman (6.5), the UAE, and Qatar rank among the 10 safest economies globally, with little terrorism incidence.

The report suggests further improvement on tourist facilities such as car rentals and accommodation.

Oman has been ranked 66th among 136 countries by the Travel & Tourism competitiveness for 2017 by WEF recently. Comparatively, Oman scores remain unchanged from the 2015 report (65/141). The country scores high on business environment (5.2), safety and security (6.5), health and hygiene (5.4), price competitiveness (5.5), ICT readiness (5.1) and human resources and labour market (4.1) on the scale of 1-7.

Despite reports of increase in the number of air passengers, Oman’s performance on airport infrastructure (3) is below average on the scale of 1-7, which means there is a need for improvement to what extent it can offer sufficient air connectivity for travellers’ access to and from countries, as well as movement within many countries.

Oman is ranked sixth in the list for Middle East and North African, topped by the UAE and Qatar. In this list, Oman scores the most for price competitiveness.

Same applies to for business travel the and category cultural resources, where Oman scores only 1.9 (on the scale of 1-7) in terms of availability of entertainment facilities and conferences. But this score may change with the opening of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre (inaugurated in late 2016) and the opening of the new Muscat International Airport probably later this year.