Hotel revenues in the sultanate rose over nine per cent till the end of July 2019 as compared to the same period last year. According to the monthly statistics of the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) revenues rose 9.3 per cent to RO127.6mn till the end of July this year as compared to RO116.8mn for the same period last year.

However, hotel occupancy rates fell by 6.8 per cent to reach 53.3 per cent at the end of July 2019 against 57.1 per cent for the same period of 2018.

Meanwhile, the total number of guests in Omani hotels showed a significant increase of 19.4 per cent in the seven-month period of 2019, reaching 989,547 from 828,754 guests for the same period of 2018.

Among the nationalities, Europeans comprised the maximum number of visitors at 355,865. This was followed by 284,409 Omani guests and 121,113 Asian tourists till July. There was also a rise in the number of American guests, GCC and other Arabs by 23.5 per cent, 4.4 per cent and 16.2 per cent to reach 38,214, 107,743, and 42,381 respectively.