How was the tourism season last year, especially for your hotel?

The tourism season in Muscat over all was good and this is due to the demand for the region, particularly in our hotel as part of an international chain we concluded a significant growth in occupancy as well as revenue.
There was a business increase of 25% comparing to the previous year.

What are the new initiatives taken to boost occupancy figures? Anything new like new restaurants or so?

For our hotel we concentrated mainly at the service side as we are     running a small property. With regards to food and beverage activities we are promoting our nice  Lebanese restaurant BEITUTI operating lunch and dinner a la carte.      

Where do your guests mostly come from?

We are mainly a business hotel and the main market is the corporate, we have most of our guests from the petroleum companies.  

What are the major MICE activities planned for 2008 and do have a strategy in place to develop this market segment?

As mentioned earlier on we have a very limited inventory of rooms so we can not cater for this segment.

What is your forecast for Oman Tourism for the future?

With a wide geographical varieties, the vision of the government towards the tourism sector, the development of the airport and the expansion of Oman Air the national airline to new destination for sure that will have direct impact in the number of visitors and tourist to the Sultanate.

Are you expecting any downslide compared to last year due to the Global Financial crisis?

There will be in the tourist part but for our hotel I can say that it will not hurt us much as we mainly cater for business traveler in the oil field which I don’t think it will stop.