Qatar has been seeing a steep increase in visitor footfalls over the past year after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and people around the globe started travelling after spending a long time indoors due to the pandemic. The number of tourist arrivals reached its crescendo towards the end of the year as the fans started trooping into Doha to watch the biggest spectacle of the sporting world – the FIFA World Cup – hosted for the first time in the region.
By most estimates, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 attracted well over a million visitors and this gave a great opportunity for Qatar to showcase its attractions to people from around the world. Most of these visitors will surely influence many others due to their great experience during the World Cup. All the fans the media talked to only had great things to say about the facilities, atmosphere, safety and culture of Qatar. Even some media outlets that were critical of Qatar before the World Cup changed their opinion as the tournament progressed.
Now, to keep the momentum gained by the World Cup, Qatar Tourism has devised many programmes to attract discerning travellers to Doha. The latest of which is the launch of the first commercial charter flight to and from Kazakhstan. As per the plan, Qatar Tourism, in partnership with Kazunion, will operate four commercial charter flights a week to and from two cities in Kazakhstan, Almaty and Astana, via FlyArystan. This is expected to attract over six million international visitors a year by 2030.
Qatar Tourism’s 2030 strategy aims to increase the number of visitors to Qatar by threefold, increase spending by 3 to 4 times, and grow the GDP contribution of the tourism sector to 12% by 2030.
Qatar has a great many things to offer tourists, its pristine beaches, well-maintained hotels in all different categories, a vibrant food scene, which is growing at a breakneck pace that you can see almost every world cuisine represented here, cultural experiences, various entertainment events and more.
Qatar is growing as a destination and the country will be welcoming around 200,000 tourists arriving on over 50 cruise liners during the current cruise season.
Tourism is picking around the world as people are eager to get moving after spending a considerable amount of time inside their houses as the pandemic wreaked havoc. Travel experts are calling this phenomenon revenge tourism and Qatar is more than ready to take maximum advantage of the growing appetite of people to travel.
