Muscat: The total revenues of the Sultanate’s hotels in the three-to-five-star category rose by 8.2 per cent to RO141,329 million till the end of August 2019 compared to RO130.653 million for the same period of the previous year.

However, hotels occupancy rates fell by 7.6 per cent to reach 52 per cent at the end of August 2019 against 56.2 per cent for the same period of 2018, according the latest monthly statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

Meanwhile, the total number of guests in Omani hotels showed a significant increase by 18.9 per cent in the eight-month period of 2019, reaching 1,130,672 from 950,860 guests for the same period of 2018.

Among the nationalities, Europeans constituted the maximum number of visitors, reaching 372,939 guests, followed by 341,026 Omani guests and 140,853 Asian tourists till the end of August 2019, the data released by NCSI revealed.

There was a rise in the number of American guests, Oceanian, GCC and other Arab guests by 25.8 per cent, 4.6 per cent, 1.3 per cent and 17.8 per cent to reach 42,648, 10,065, 139,479 and 49,149 guests respectively. However, there was a drop in the number of African guests by 5 per cent to reach 7,722. — ONA