Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA)’s role is to manage the tourism industry development in Qatar, as well as to represent and promote Qatar as a quality tourism destination for leisure, business, education, and sport. Qatar Tourism Authority gets actively involved in organizing world class events and promotions which reflect how Qatar is evolving as a dynamic twenty first century tourism destination.
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Attracting an increasing number of visitors
The year 2011 saw a massive jump in the number of visitors to Qatar with a 50% increase in the number of tourist coming from the GCC region and a 15% increase in the number of tourist arriving from European countries and a considerable jump in the number of total international visitors in January, 2011 to take part in the Asian games. The total number of tourists has increased to 60.514 in 2012. In terms of GCC tourists visiting Qatar statistics reveal a 22% growth rate in visitors during the first quarter of 2012. Overseas visitor numbers also increased, especially from Asia. Asian tourists visiting Qatar registered the highest growth rate with a total of 36,385 visitors in the first quarter of 2012, followed by European tourists with a total of 10,456 tourists.
Taking advantage of Qatar’s key location
Qatar is where the East meets West and Qatar Tourism Authority’s is to grow the tourism industry in Qatar by 20% in the next five years by underlining its pivotal location and high quality luxury hotel offerings and state of the art business facilities for international visitors.
Qatar plans to be a destination which is ready to welcome the world, thanks to a significant number of investments in tourism infrastructure by the State of Qatar, including the construction of 130 new hotels, resorts and other leisure facilities, not to mention a new international airport, a new port with cruise passenger terminal, a new railway network, with metro, street trams and people carrier, as well as providing some 12 sports stadiums.
An estimated 50 million passengers will come through the New Doha International Airport when it opens in June 2013, with a capacity to handle 320,000 planes.
Qatar
Tourism Authority is targeting 5% of these passengers to stay an extra 48 hours in the country beyond their initial scheduled stopover, totaling 2.5 million travelers.
Major investments in tourism facilities
The investment increase of US $17 billion over the next five years in tourism facilities will make Qatar even more attractive to visitors. This will mean the construction of luxury hotels, resorts and other leisure facilities, totalling a 400% increase in hotel capacity up to 29,000 luxury rooms by 2013.
Qatar has invested even more in its tourism sites, such as the $3 billion Museum of Islamic Art, designed by world famous I.M Pei, famous for his inspirational modern wing of the Louvre in Paris; the fascinating traditional Souq Waqif area; the Doha National Museum, and other projects like the Photography Museum, the Arab Modern Art Museum and the National Library.
Massive investment in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector is
also making Qatar an upscale destination reputed for quality and excellence, attracting global events with its increasing development of sustainable exhibition centres
Business oriented tourism
Qatar Tourism Authority is developing Qatar into a leading world-class event destination for the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector.
Qatar is gaining a reputation for quality and excellence, and guiding the development of sustainable events and supporting infrastructure. By combining exhibitions and tourism, Qatar has created a unique tourism offering as a business oriented destination with superlative leisure activities. In addition, Qatar is home to two high end event centres totaling a capacity of 95,000 square metres that have been uniquely built and designed to host world-class scale events and exhibitions.
In Qatar, business travelers can attend key conferences as well as world-scale exhibitions, all year-round, such as those in sectors like oil and gas, finance, real-estate development, medicine, fashion and jewellry. Doha also hosts a wide range of mainstream global diplomatic and cultural conferences, for this year’s COP 18, the largest global UN led environmental event that reports on the Millennium Goals for all countries in the world.
Qatar is a bridge between tradition and global innovation. It is a high quality destination that attracts premiere leisure, business, medical, sport and education tourism, while properly preserving, maintaining and highlighting its authentic heritage and rich past.
Qatar offers business oriented tourism, combined with unique leisure attractions. Offering true Arabic hospitality, Qatar seeks to preserve its past and its heritage, while being proud its future. The country wants to attract international and regional visitors to make them discover Qatar in all its diversity and experience its amazing growth and richness as a new destination for the future with a progressive outlook that speaks to world travelers.
Tourism in Qatar has a strong business focus but visitors can also take advantage of its unique leisure attractions. In Qatar, we welcome the world as we focus on presenting our country as a world class destination, with the world’s finest newly-built luxury hotels, gourmet restaurants and state of the art business services and leisure facilities.
Multi-faceted tourism
Qatar is preparing for a great future by focusing on unlocking the creative and economic potential of its people by offering them the most advanced education and training institutions in the region. To do this Qatar has actively sought and attracted the top global educational companies in the world and created a science and technology hub in Qatar to leverage its intellectual and physical resources. Qatar is committed to sustainable development in all its new building works and construction of new educational facilities and training centres.
As the country continues to grow in stature on the global stage, Qatar is quickly becoming a sought after destination for international business and recreational travelers. At Qatar Tourism Authority, our message to the world is that is a bridge between tradition and global innovation, it’s where East meets West. Qatar is preserving its past and heritage in a dazzling contemporary 21st Century landscape. Qatar is now become a high quality destination offering the very best in leisure, business, medical, sport and education tourism, while properly preserving its authentic heritage and rich past for visitors to experience.
