Muscat – With the 2023 khareef season just around the corner, the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) has released data on last year’s season, revealing that tourists spent over RO86mn during the three-month tourist period.

Omani visitors constituted the majority, accounting for 69% of the total number of tourists in 2022, with a recorded 562,995 visitors. In 2022, the number of visitors to Dhofar reached 813,000, marking a 6% increase compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 when the governorate welcomed 767,000 visitors.

The NCSI statistics showed a rise of 6% in the number of visitors arriving by road in 2022, reaching 647,301 compared to 610,491 during the same period in 2019.

Air travel saw significant growth, with a total of 165,704 visitors arriving in Salalah by air in 2022, representing a 20.4% increase from 2019, which recorded 156,281 visitors.

The number of domestic flights during the khareef season of 2022 was 16,114, compared to 15,198 flights in 2019.

After Omani tourists, visitors from the GCC countries formed the majority, reaching 161,260 in 2022, an increase of 24.5% compared to 129,519 visitors of 2019.

Visitors of Asian nationalities were over 57,000, while 26,000 more were from the Arab countries. European countries contributed 3,000 visitors, while 1,600 visitors came from other countries.

Expenditure by visitors during the khareef season was over RO86mn, demonstrating growth compared to 2019 when it amounted to approximately RO76mn.