World Cup a boon for tourism in Gulf nations: CSRGulf report

Doha: The Arab Gulf Heart for Research and Analysis (CSRGulf) has revealed all Gulf nations benefited immensely from the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 — the primary to be hosted within the Center East and the Arab world, aside from Kuwait, which ranked final. 

In keeping with the Kuwait-based think-tank, over 2.5 million folks visited the area through the World Cup, of which hosts Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia had been important beneficiaries when it comes to tourism. Nonetheless, CSRGulf stated that Kuwait failed to totally maximise the tourism potential introduced by the World Cup as a result of delay in restructuring its tourism sector and aviation fleet and the delay in finishing enlargement works on the worldwide airport. 

In the meantime, Qatar has the second largest contribution to the nation’s GDP by way of tourism. The sector brings in 10.3% of the nation’s GDP behind the UAE. In keeping with CSRGulf, the tourism infrastructure has considerably benefited from Qatar’s internet hosting of the World Cup, and due to the event of the sector, benefiting from the World Cup actions and the promotion of a number of vacationer locations within the nation.

The UAE topped the classification of the Gulf nations when it comes to tourism revenues and its contribution to the gross home product. The sector contributes greater than 11.6% to the UAE’s output.

The Heart acknowledged that Bahrain is third within the area as tourism contributes 6.8% to its GDP. Saudi Arabia positioned fourth is an rising vacation spot for tourism and leisure within the Center East. Tourism contributes 5.3% of the Kingdom’s GDP, with projections pointing in direction of a big enhance. Kuwait and Oman deliver up the least, with tourism bringing in 3.3% and three% of their GDP, respectively. 

The CSRGulf report additionally acknowledged that the air fleets of main airways within the Gulf and the elevated flights to Qatar contributed to the area’s tourism progress through the World Cup. A per the report, the UAE and Qatar have probably the most in depth air fleet, with 257 and 200, respectively, whereas Saudi Arabia has 144. Oman’s numbers are put between 52-64; Bahrain has 36 operated by Gulf Airways, whereas Kuwait ranked the final within the Gulf, with about 33 plane.

Throughout the World Cup, GCC nations opened their borders to visiting World Cup followers, enabling Hayya Card holders’ multi-entry visas to their nations for stays, ranging as much as 90 days.  

A RedSeer Technique Consultants report in November estimated that the World Cup would offer a profitable $4bn uplift to the GCC spending ranges with growing spending by vacationers and locals.

In the meantime, Gulf vacationers spend six instances greater than the remainder of the world. 

A 2018 World Tourism Group report expenditure was estimated to be greater than $60bn in 2017, up from $40bn in 2010.