analysis of emerging tourism industry in qatar

Paritosh Kashyap

Analysis of Emerging Tourism Industry in Qatar


Qatar considered is considered as one of the fastest growing economies across the

world. The success saga of Qatar in the recent past is commendable. It is

estimated that the Gulf state enjoys one of the highest per capita income across

the globe.

. In spite of achievements in various fields, it is important to note that the tourism

industry in Qatar is in its nascent phase. The Gulf state is making huge

investments in developing state of the art infrastructure. However the tourism

industry in Qatar, where 95% of tourists are business travelers, is still in its

inception stage and has a long way to go. The given research analysis will analyze

the emerging tourism sector of Qatar and benchmark its capital Doha against

another oil rich emirate, Abu Dhabi

Tourism Industry: General overview

Qatar where petroleum constitutes 70% of its govt. revenue and 85% of export,

has ambitious plans for diversifying into various other alternate sectors-tourism is

one of them. Though tourism sector in Qatar is not much matured, it’s surely is

high up on the govt. agenda and is attracting huge investments, direct as well as

indirect.

In 2009, Qatar’s total tourism revenue had been US $ 0.7 billion, lagging behind

Bahrain’s US $ 1.1 billion and UAE’s US $ 7.2 Billion (Euromonitor blog, 2010).

The biggest driving force for the sector is Qatar’s winning the bid to host football

World Cup 2022 which is considered as the biggest sporting event across the

world. Qatar will be the 1st Arab state to have the privilege of hosting such a huge

sports event. In order to prepare for the World Cup, the nation is seeking huge of

huge investments in infrastructure, hotels, and sporting utilities.

Besides the preparation for the soccer world cup some of the other major

infrastructure projects include Lusail city, Qatar Entertainment City, Pearl Project,

Qatar Metro Project, international airports, football stadiums etc.

Paritosh Kashyap


The following figure shows the inflow of tourists over the period of time. The slight

spike in 2006 over 2004 is on the account of Asian games 2006, conducted in Doha

(Source of data: Euromonitor Blog).

20042006

20082010

2012(projec

ted)

2014(projec

ted)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

0.60

1.00 0.90

1.10

1.40

1.80

Qatar is vigorously building new hotels to bolster its emerging tourism industry. It

already has a wide range of luxury hotels and is currently focusing more on

development of 3 star and 4 star hotels. In 2010, it was estimated that it had added

2,500 new rooms thereby bringing the total number of rooms to more than 11,000.

(Arabianbusiness.com, 2010) The following graph reflects the number of hotel

rooms including past as well as future projections:

Paritosh Kashyap


0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

3,700 6,000 7,500 11,000

29,000

80,000

90,000

(Source of data: arabianbusiness.com, Qatarliving.com, trimdeast.com)

The following figure shows percentage of inbound tourists from various countries

in the year 2008

8%1%

1%2%

4%4%

4%

23%

1%

7%4%

1%

40%

BahrainFranceIranJordanKuwaitLebanonOmanSaudi ArabiaSyriaUAEUKYemenOthers

Paritosh Kashyap


Types of tourism in Qatar

Qatar’s tourism industry primarily depends on business tourism and as mentioned

earlier- 95% of the travelers are business travelers. Along with business tourism,

other forms of tourism which are evolving are luxury tourism, sports tourism and

desert tourism etc.

Business Tourism : The high end business tourism is the corner stone of

the tourism industry at Qatar. Qatar’s vibrant economy and emergence as

a constructive place to do business has been helpful to the business

tourism industry in the state. The capital city Doha is considered as a

powerful MICE (Meetings, Incentive travel, Conferences and Exhibition)

venue along with other Middle Eastern counterparts, like Dubai, Abu

Dhabi, and Cairo. In order to support its MICE industry, Qatar has

established an institution named QMDI-“Qatar MICE Development

Institute”, which is in the business of advising, supporting and

conducting top notch business events at Qatar with international

expertise. Presently, there are international hotel chains along with

Culture and Heritage Village and Doha Exhibition Center- effectively

catering to the MICE segment. Next year, in 2012, the QNCC (Qatar

national exhibition center) with a massive space of 40,000 Sq meters is

expected to be operational, adding further strength to the MICE industry.

Lifestyle tourism : Qatar is a place where modern brilliance blends well

with the traditional Qatari charm. Blessed with exotic desert landscapes

and magnificent coast line, Qatar has a wide range of things to offer for

life style tourists, hailing from all around the globe. It is seeking huge

investments in building lifestyle tourism avenues which includes luxury

hotels, resorts, spas, marinas, golf courses, exotic islands, coastline

development, cultural museums etc. Though still in its initial phase, Qatar

is coming up with multi-billion dollar master plans to transform itself into

a magnificent lifestyle tourist destination.

Paritosh Kashyap


Sports tourism : Like other Middle Eastern/GCC cities such as Dubai and

Bahrain, Doha is emerging fast as a sports tourism destination. The very

1st major sporting event in Qatar was Asian Games 2006, the second

largest sporting event after the Olympics. Qatar built around 30 sports

facilities for the same. The Asian Games 2006, the biggest Asian game of

its time, saw 45 countries participating in 40 competitive events.

(European business review, 2005). Since then, Qatar has conducted

some world class events like, SonyEricsson WTA Tour, ExxonMobil Tennis

Open, Qatar Masters Cup (golf) and Asian Cup Football 2011 etc. QTA

(Qatar tourism authority), QSI (Qatar sports investment) and the

Qatar Olympic Committee, in association with other private players have

invested extensively in developing world class sporting complexes such as

Aspire Zone, Khalifa stadium, Doha golf course, Lusail international race

circuit etc- equipped with state of the art facilities. However the biggest

success which Qatar has got in this area was winning the bid for hosting

2022 Football World Cup.

Major tourism development projects

The tourism industry in Qatar is expected to go through a very interesting phase in

the coming years. There is plethora of massive projects underway including a new

airport. Some of the major construction projects are mentioned below-

Lusail city : It’s a US $ 7.2 billion real estate development project which can

accommodate 200, 000 individuals. Spread across an area of 37 Sq

Kilometer, it consists of residences, towers, resorts, hotels and an offshore

island with 500 villas. The project was announced in 2005 and is expected to

be finished by 2020. ( Arabianbusiness.com, 2010)

Qatar Entertainment City : Qatar entertainment city, a project funded by

ADIH (Abu Dhabi investment house), it is part of grand Lusail city

development project. It aspires to transform Doha into world class tourist

Paritosh Kashyap


destination. Spread across an area of 10 Sq Kilometer with a unique

Kilometer long waterfront, the project will serve three purpose- residence,

retail and entertainment. Along with sea front apartments and villas, five

star hotels and retail outlets, the US $ 10 billion entertainment city project

will provide a wide range of entertainment options such as roller coasters,

theme parks, cafes, go carting, rain forests, theatres etc. (ecqat.com,

2011)

Pearl island project : The US $ 20 billion pearl island is a manmade island

spread across an area of four Sq Kilometer, developed by United

Development Company (UDC), the biggest private equity firm in Qatar. The

mixed used project will be consisting of world class apartments, villas, sea

front accommodations, hotels and resorts along with wide range of

entertainment facilities such as Marinas with around 1000 boats, yacht club,

Restaurants etc. The project was started in 2006 and is expected to finish by

2011. Once completed the island will havek 18000 luxury houses, capable

of accommodating 41,000 individuals along with 2 million Sq feet of retail

space used for retail outlets, restaurants etc. (pearl island homepage,

2011)

New Doha international airport: By 2012, the new Doha international

airport (NDIA) will be operational. The US $ 11 billion airport with an

annual capacity of 24 million passengers (once fully complete, it can handle

around 50 million passengers) and 1.3 million cargos, is expected to be one

of the most high tech airports in the world(Constructionweekonline.com,

2009).

2022 World Cup: Preparations

One of the biggest successes that Qatar witnessed in the recent past is winning the

bid to conduct Football World Cup 2022. The entire state is very excited and is not

keeping any stone unturned to make the event a grand success. In order to

Paritosh Kashyap


conduct the event huge investment plans are on cards. The following part will

discuss the road map of preparation for the world cup:-

Road, railways and sea networks : It has been estimated that during the

World Cup, 400,000 fans will be visiting Doha from all around the world. In

order to facilitate their smooth and fast movement, Qatar is seeking huge

investments. It includes allocating US $ 20 billion for the development of

road and highway networks, US $ 11 billion for the new airport discussed

above, US $ 5.5 billion for deepwater port, US $ 4 billion for building a

bridge between Bahrain and Qatar over the sea. There will be an investment

of approximately US $ 40 billion in developing a 340 Kilometer, 98 station

metro railway networks for Doha and its outer skirts. (Dubaimetro.eu,

2011)

Football stadium : There is a US $ 4 billion investment plan for building

nine stadiums and renovating three existing stadiums. In order to cope with

the intense heat, prevalent in this part of globe during the time of world

cup, Qatar will implement cutting edge climate technologies which can keep

the temperature with in 28 degree Celsius. (worldarchitecturenews.com,

2010)

Hotels : To accommodate the vast pool of fans coming from all around the

world, Qatar has invested religiously in developing 3 star and 4 star hotels.

It is expected that by 2022 Qatar will have around 90,000 rooms. Along with

the existing 100 properties, 140 new properties will be used for meeting the

accommodation requirements. Qatar is also planning to use a cruise ship

with 6000 rooms for accommodating the fans. (HotelierMiddleEast.com,

2010)

Doha vs. Abu Dhabi

Paritosh Kashyap


Both Qatar and Abu Dhabi are considered as emerging tourist destinations

and have striking similarity. In the following part the tourism industry of Qatar

and Abu Dhabi will be compared across various parameters.

Parameters Doha Abu Dhabi

No. of tourists in 2008 0.9 million 1.4 million

No. of tourists in 2012

(estimated)

1.4 million 2.7 million

No. of hotel rooms in 2008 6,000 12,000

No. of hotel rooms in 2012

(estimated)

29,000 25,000

Worth of tourism projects

underway #

US $ 122.7 billion US $ 131.3 billion

National carrier, fleet size

and destinations served

Qatar airways, 93 +139

(orders), 100

Etihad airways, 57 +

102(orders), 66

Business travelers as

percentage of total visitors

95 percentage 72 percentage

Tourism is high up on the agendas for both the Arab state- Doha (Qatar) as

well as Abu Dhab, and both are seeking huge investments in tourism

infrastructure and marketing them very aggressively. While Qatar is

preparing hard for 2022, Abu Dhabi aspires having around 7.9 million tourists

by the end of 2030, as a part of its vision 2030.

They have their similarities as well as individual competencies. While going by

the table, it can be inferred that Abu Dhabi has narrow advantage over Qatar,

on account of various parameters such as number of, tourists, hotel rooms etc,

Qatar’s advantage lies in its robust economic growth, escalation and

expansion plan for its tourism industry, emergence of its national carrier

Paritosh Kashyap


Qatar airways as a world class carrier and winning the bid for organizing

football world cup 2022 which can do unprecedented marketing for Qatar as a

destination. Another interesting point that has to be observed is that since

both the Arab state share a lot of similarities and are also geographically

closely placed, their ambitious plans for tourism are bound to clash at some

point of another. One’s gain may be another’s loss.

Recommendations for tourism industry at Qatar:-

Unique Brand Proposition: - In the near future Qatar needs devise a

unique positioning plan for itself. Qatar may have made a mark as one of

the fastest economies in the world but as far as tourism is concern there

is hardly anything differentiating Qatar from other Arab states such as

Abu Dhabi, Bahrain or Kuwait. In line with other states it is also perceived

as a cash / oil rich Gulf state with upcoming real estate projects, sky

scrapers, shopping malls, spas and resorts etc. Qatar needs to build a

unique promotional campaign which can directly differentiate Qatar from

rest of the Gulf States.

Some of the possible unique brand propositions could be its Arabic

heritage, economic growth, safety, friendly populace etc.

2022 world cup: 2022 world cup will provide a great opportunity for

Qatar to showcase its grandeur to the globe. After winning the bid,

Qatar is attracting a lot of international attention. The entire process of

preparation for the world cup can do wonders in building brand Qatar.

The overall world cup preparation needs to be aligned with Qatar’s

brand building campaign.

Paritosh Kashyap


Utilization of hotel rooms post world cup: Qatar is planning to build

90,000 hotel rooms for the world cup. Once the world cup is over,

further utilization of such a large inventory of hotel rooms will be an

upheaval task. In order to handle the given possibility, Qatar needs to

develop a strong market for a wide range of tourism such as, leisure,

life style, sports, desert, cultural, tourism.

Engage business travelers: 95% of the inbound travelers visit Qatar

for business purpose. Qatar needs to engage such travelers well, as it

has been observed that business visitors had high chances of revisiting

the location for leisure purpose.

Strong focus on inbound tourism: With a per capita GDP of US $

93,000 in 2008, (Euromonitor, 2009) Qataris are among the richest

individuals in the world. Hence tourism authorities at Qatar should

also emphasize on domestic tourism, given the fact that Qatari nationals

have huge disposable income to spend.

Reference:

1> Euromonitor blog, 2010, Qatar’s ambition to develop its tourism sector,

available at < http://blog.euromonitor.com/2010/06/qatars-ambitions-to-

develop-its-tourism-sector.html>

2> Arabianbusiness.com, 2010, Qatar to see big increase in hotel rooms in

2010, available at < http://www.arabianbusiness.com/qatar-see-big-increase-

in-hotel-rooms-in-2010-9747.html>

3> Qatarconvention.com, 2011, homepage, available at

http://www.qatarconvention.com/

4> European business review, 2005, Intercontinental hotel links regional

development to booming sports tourism sector, available at <

http://europeanbusiness.gr/page.asp?pid=532>

Paritosh Kashyap

http://europeanbusiness.gr/page.asp?pid=532

http://www.qatarconvention.com/

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/qatar-see-big-increase-in-hotel-rooms-in-2010-9747.html

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/qatar-see-big-increase-in-hotel-rooms-in-2010-9747.html

http://blog.euromonitor.com/2010/06/qatars-ambitions-to-develop-its-tourism-sector.html

http://blog.euromonitor.com/2010/06/qatars-ambitions-to-develop-its-tourism-sector.html


5> Arabian business.com, 2010, Lusail to complete Qatari city in ten years,

available at http://www.arabianbusiness.com/lusail-complete-qatari-city-in-

10-years-349214.html

6> Ecqat.com, 2011, home page, available at

http://www.ecqat.com/en/news/pressrelease.html

7> Thepearlqatar.com, 2011, homepage, available at

http://www.thepearlqatar.com/SubTemplate1.aspx?ID=165&MID=115

8> Constructionweekonline.com, 2009, New Doha international airport,

available at http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-4830-

new_doha_international_airport/

9> Dubaimetro.eu, 2011, Qatar $ 40 billion investment for world cup, available

at http://dubaimetro.eu/construction-technology/6816/qatar-40-billion-

investment-for-world-cup

10> Newzglobe.com, 2010, Qatar: investment provides new business

opportunities, available at <

http://www.newzglobe.com/article/20110421/qatar-investment-provides-

new-businesses-opportunities>

11> HoteleirMiddleEast.com, 2010, World cup fans housed at sea for

Qatar 2022, available at http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/10116-world-

cup-fans-housed-at-sea-for-qatar-2022/

12> Euromonitor, 2009, Euromonitor international: travel and tourism in

Qatar, p-48

Paritosh Kashyap

http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/10116-world-cup-fans-housed-at-sea-for-qatar-2022/

http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/10116-world-cup-fans-housed-at-sea-for-qatar-2022/

http://www.newzglobe.com/article/20110421/qatar-investment-provides-new-businesses-opportunities

http://www.newzglobe.com/article/20110421/qatar-investment-provides-new-businesses-opportunities

http://dubaimetro.eu/construction-technology/6816/qatar-40-billion-investment-for-world-cup

http://dubaimetro.eu/construction-technology/6816/qatar-40-billion-investment-for-world-cup

http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-4830-new_doha_international_airport/

http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-4830-new_doha_international_airport/

http://www.thepearlqatar.com/SubTemplate1.aspx?ID=165&MID=115

http://www.ecqat.com/en/news/pressrelease.html

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/lusail-complete-qatari-city-in-10-years-349214.html

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/lusail-complete-qatari-city-in-10-years-349214.html

analysis of emerging tourism industry in qatar

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