Oman statistics keeper plans survey of Khareef Salalah visitors

Salalah: A survey to generate statistical indicators of Khareef visitors to Salalah is being planned.
The National Center for Statistics and Information (NCSI), in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Royal Oman Police (ROP), is implementing a project and a survey for Khareef Salalah visitors during the period between June 21 to September 21, 2017.
The survey aims at providing statistical indicators on the number of visitors to contribute to developing the tourism sector in the Governorate of Dhofar.
The project provides statistical data on the visitors in terms of nationality, country of stay and the transportation mean used, as well as the economic effect of Khareef season on the Governorate of Dhofar.
As per the outcome of 2016, the number of visitors stood at 653,000 (an average of 7000 per day ), the highest number of visitors since initiating the survey in 2004.
The survey outcomes pointed out that the number of Omani visitors to the Governorate of Dhofar stood at 460,345; a growth by 21.8 per cent compared to 378,068 visitors during the same period in 2015. The Gulf visitors constituted 17.5 per cent of the total number of visitors in 2016.
The number of U.A.E tourists during the Khareef season 2016 stood at 60,370 compared to 31,581 from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 7,915 from the State of Qatar, 7,315 from the State of Kuwait and 6,926 from the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The number of visitors from other Arab countries stood at 17,333 compared to 55,904 from Asian countries – mostly Indians (34,484).