MUSCAT: The Sultanate of Oman, represented by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism, will be celebrating Arab Tourism Day on Friday, February 25. The theme for this year’s celebration would be moving ‘towards sustainable digital tourism’.

In the wake of COVID-19, the tourism industry around the world took a severe hit. Ever since the pandemic, efforts have been taken by those who belong to the industry to find advanced technological solutions to keep the ship sailing. The aim of these solutions is to recover the industry from the challenges it faced the past two years and to raise awareness about the contribution of the tourism sector to the economy.

In 2021, at least 652,000 travellers poured into Oman, out of which 293,125 alone belonged to the Gulf region. Revenues generated by three-star to five-star hotels amounted to OMR 102 million. The number of guests in these hotels also touched 1.2 million by the end of December 2021, the data issued by the National Center for Statistics and Information revealed.

The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism’s interest in digital transformation comes within the framework of keeping up with permanent renewable revolution witnessed by modern communication technologies. The inevitability of keeping up with this pace is a main focus in the development of the tourism sector, its services, facilities and products. The tourism industry and travel trends are constantly evolving owing to the technological innovations.

In this lieu, the ministry has provided an integrated system that allows investors to complete and clear their transactions electronically through the official tourism portal of the ministry. The content of the site is periodically updated so that it is comprehensive and caters to all requirements and inquiries. Care is taken to keep the site updated with adequate data and information, along with developing the technological infrastructure owned by the ministry in this regard.

The ‘Discover Oman’ website is an important addition to promote and introduce the unique and diverse tourism potentials of the Sultanate. It mentions present offers and promotional campaigns in cooperation with partners in the sector, while giving the opportunity for users and followers to interact through this site and with the ministry’s social media accounts.

The World Tourism Organisation has confirmed that in the near future all its services will move from a traditional system to a digitalised system in all areas of tourism work. The organisation has pointed out that digital transformation has become a goal that the Arab world must strive to achieve to be in the league of developed countries in in terms of tourism industry

The travel body also explained that the latest statistics of the World Economic Forum in Davos has predicted that digital transformation in the fields of aviation, travel and tourism would generate an added value for the tourism sector amounting to USD 305 billion during the period 2019 to 2025. It is also expected that the tourism sector will witness a creation of new job opportunities which would depend on the skills of the digital age.