Hotels in Oman register 1.6% rise in earnings

Muscat: Three- to five-star hotels in the Sultanate recorded a 1.6 per cent rise in their revenue until the end of September this year, reaching OMR135.009 million, compared with OMR132.831 million in the same period of 2016.
The total number of guests in the hotels reached 1,117,840 until September this year, compared to 1,145,025 guests until September 2016, registering a 2.4 per cent decline, according to the data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
The occupancy rate rose by 0.7 per cent to reach 54.7 per cent this year, compared with 54.3 per cent during the same period last year.
Guests from African countries witnessed a 28 per cent growth to reach 7,690 until the end of September 2017, compared with 6,008 guests during the same period in 2016. There was a 26.5 per cent growth in the number of guests from European countries until the end of September 2017, compared with 2016.
Guests from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries declined by 6.9 per cent to 170,366 until September 2017, compared with 183,046 guests in the same period last year, while those from Arab countries witnessed a 12.2 per cent decline to 49,147 guests, compared with 55,985 in the same period last year.
Interestingly, there was an 18.1 per cent decline in the number of Omani guests, from 387,113 in 2016 to 316,914 in 2017.
The number of Asian guests declined by 9.7 per cent to 118,554 from 131,357. American guests registered a 4.9 per cent decline from 38,973 until the end of September last year to 37,054 this year. There was a 1.3 per cent decline in the number of guests from Oceania countries this year, from 9,405 last year to 9,284 in 2017.
The number of guests whose nationality was not stated declined by 35.4 per cent, from 20,276 until September 2016 to 13,091 this year, according to NCSI data.