729,000 plus international visitors choosing Qatar in H1, 2022

729,000 plus international visitors choosing Qatar in H1, 2022

QNA/Doha

Qatar’s tourism sector continues to witness a strong recovery with more than 729,000 international visitors choosing Qatar as a destination in the first half of 2022, up 19% on 2021.

Qatar witnessed robust international visitation in June, with 149,000 visitors, marking the highest visitation in the summer month in the last 5 years.

34% of the total visitors entered by Land (51,000), 6% by Sea (10,000), and 59% by Air (88,000) via Qatar’s Hamad International Airport, which was recently voted the “World’s Best Airport” by Skytrax for the second year in a row.

Regional markets delivered impressive tourism volumes, as the most significant inbound markets to Qatar in June are Saudi Arabia (26%), India (10%), USA (5%), Oman (5%), UK (4%), UAE (4%) and Kuwait (4%).

The month of June also marked the end of Qatar’s winter cruise season, which ran from December 2021 to June this year.

During the season, Qatar welcomed 101,000 cruise ship visitors, with some 34 cruise ship calls. This is approximately 12% of the total arrivals during the same period of last year.

Qatar’s hospitality also sector saw a positive return with 3.1mn room-nights sold by June 2022 compared with the 3.2mn room nights