The five-star hotels in Oman have greeted the decision of resuming international flights

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Recently, all the five-star hotels in Oman have greeted with open arms the news that foreign flights will return to the sultanate from October 2020, some of them seeing occupancy levels going down to halve during the pandemic. During the lockdown, luxury hotels in Oman informed Arabian Business that occupancy averaged 50 percent compared to close to 100 percent for the same time in last year. With the weather finally cooling down in Oman, news of international flight resumption from October 1st could have come at no opportune time.

On Monday, a tweet by Oman News Agency has confirmed that flights will resume as per “health data for specific destinations and according to bilateral agreements with other airlines”.

Sultanate’s luxury hotels have explained that they have tried to compensate the major drop in international tourism by promoting local tourism among Omanis.

To quote said Rami Farhat, acting general manager of Anantara Al Jabal Akhdar Resort, “Since the ease of restrictions on movements and facilities which can operate, we have seen a very positive response from the domestic market.”

To quote Farhat as told to Arabian Business: “Local citizens and residents embraced staycations and we have responded with our own Resetcation offer that gives them the opportunity to leave the city behind and ascend to the cooler climes of Al Jabal Al Akhdar and enjoy the safety of their own private pool villa.”

He said that demand is anticipated to be driven mainly by the UAE, because of its closeness and the opportunity to drive instead of flying. To quote Al Araimi, “Residents of the UAE are our main market here and we can tell they are eager to visit Oman again.” Hoteliers have mentioned that they believe the western market will still be cautious of long flights because of the crisis so they hope visitors to be mainly from the Gulf and wider Middle East region.

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