Oman’s Ministry of Tourism has issued agreements for the development of 11 tourism accommodation projects throughout the country.
Leading the way is a substantial plot to be developed by the Oman Government’s ‘Oman Investment Fund’. The size of the plot in Al Jabal Al Akhdar, 73,367sqm is comparable to the plot developed by an Oman pension fund and operated by Anantara and about 50% of the land area available to Alila, the new property will be the mountain’s 3rd luxury hotel. Al Jabal Al Akhdar’s room offering has grown from a single 22room hotel in 2011 to 4 hotels with 10times the number. The government intend
the mountains of Al Jabal Al Akhdar which have temperatures some 10c lower than the plains to be a year round destination and support the target of 80,000rooms in the country by 2040.
The Oman Investment Fund intend opening an Alila Hotel in Salalah by 2018 which will will again have Anantar as a close neighbour along with several other 5star properties in the area. Currently Oman has around 17,000 rooms and may have more than 20,000 hotel rooms by 2020.Other projects included in the 11 plots are 2 substantially smaller units in Dima Wa At Tayyin a large region of the Ash Sharqiyyah south-east of Muscat which currently has no accommodation.
Also in the Ash Sharqiyyah is an additional plot in Bidiyyah which is the traditional location for over a dozen desert camps.
Salalah which is currently very well served by accommodation has an additional 2 plots given.
Nizwa, currently a key tourism centre, and Izki will have an accommodation unit in each town and finally Barka near Muscat and Saham near Suhar will also have a unit each.
In 2016 41 new hotels opened, taking the total number to 339. Probably the other major ongoing project is the substantial project in Ras Al Hadd by Qatari Diar, for which an airport is under creation.
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