The head of the Qatar Tourism Authority announced on Sunday that his country expects to receive more than 5 million visitors in 2023, despite the slowdown in the sector following the FIFA World Cup finals.
Akbar Al-Baker, who is also CEO of Qatar Airways, acknowledged the decline in hotel activity after the World Cup ended on December 19.
But he stressed that all the countries that hosted the World Cup witnessed a similar situation after the tournament and that hotels are still 65-70% full.
Al-Baker said in a press conference that 1.16 million visitors were registered in the first quarter of 2023, and he told AFP on the sidelines of the conference that he expects at least 5 million visitors during the year.
In 2019, before the emergence of the Covid virus, Qatar received about 2.1 million tourists. In comparison, regional rival Dubai will welcome more than 14 million tourists in 2022.
As part of its efforts to reduce dependence on its natural gas wealth, Qatar has spent billions of dollars on tourism infrastructure and hosting major sporting events.
The government has set a target of receiving six million foreign tourists annually by 2030. “I think we will not be very far from the target” in 2023, Akbar Al-Baker told AFP.
“Because of the FIFA World Cup, we have built a lot of infrastructure in the hospitality sector, and of course our task now is to make sure that occupancy rates rise in the coming period,” the Qatari official added.
Qatar announced the reception of 1.4 million visitors during the World Cup, and expects that foreign tourists will constitute about one million out of the 3 million people expected to attend the International Horticultural Exhibition scheduled in Doha from October 2 to March 28, 2024.
