OMAN: Khareef season begins in Dhofar today



OMAN: Khareef season begins in Dhofar today

21st, June 2016

SALALAH: The Khareef Season in the Governorate of Dhofar, which runs from June 21 to September 21, will commence today. During this season, Salalah becomes a tourist destination for family tourism from the Sultanate and the Gulf Region. The number of visitors during Khareef last year stood at 514,000 with an average 5,000 visitors per day. The outcome of Khareef Salalah visitors survey project 2015, implemented annually by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Royal Oman Police, show that the number of Gulf visitors including Omanis stood at 459,000 or 89.2 per cent of the total number of visitors. The statistics pointed out that the number of Omani visitors stood at 378,068 compared to 81,299 visitors from the GCC countries, mostly arrived by road.

Khareef is a unique phenomena in the Sultanate that affects most costal wilayats in the Governorate of Dhofar ‘from the Wilayat of Dhalkut in the West till the Wilayat of Mirbat in the East. The phenomenon is called Monsoon and it takes place starting from June 21 of each year. During this unique climate condition, the private and public sector organizations prepare to receive visitors and tourists by providing them with the facilitates and services that meet their needs. The hotel sector in the Governorate of Dhofar witnessed a new addition in February 2016 by the opening of Al Fanar Hotel, which has a capacity of 218 rooms.

The first stage of Salalah Beach Resort has been also completed to increase the number of rooms in the resort to 700. Besides Al Fanar Hotel (5 star), the resort comprises Rotana Hotel (5 star) and Juwairah Hotel (4 star). Anantara Salalah Al Baleed Resort, which is close to Al Baleed Archeological Site, inscribed at the Unesco World Heritage List, will be opened next month. The hotel provides 136 rooms and villas, in addition to restaurants and recreational facilities that will develop the level of hotel services provided to Salalah visitors.

SURVEY BEGINS: Khalid bin Said al Mudhafar, Director-General of Economic Statistics affirmed that the survey, which is carried out for the 13th successive year, in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Royal Oman Police contributes to providing data and information that reflect the status of tourism sector in the Governorate of Dhofar during Khareef season. Such data will help in planning for this vital sector. He pointed out that the project aims at identifying the size of local and foreign tourism during the Khareef season and decide the growth trends during the past periods. It also aims at studying the demographic and economic features of visitors and the tours.

He added that the field surveys for Khareef Salalah 2016 Visitors Survey will continue up to September 21 and will include all visitors to Salalah either by land or by air. This includes interviews with visitors at Hareet check point in the Governorate of Dhofar for land travellers, Muscat International Airport, for domestic and transit travellers and Salalah Airport for international flights travellers using the PDAs. Visitors to Salalah onboard of non-Omani vehicles will receive the survey cards at the check points and will deliver such cards for the representatives at Hareet police station in the Governorate of Dhofar. The data will be entered later. Visitors coming by bus will get cards at the bus stop in the Wilayat of Thumrait. The cards will be collected by the representatives at Hareet Police station and will then enter the data to the computer system.


 














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