There has been a significant rise in the number of visitors to Ras Al Khaimah in the first quarter of 2017.
That is according to figures that have been released by Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA) ahead of Arabian Travel Market (ATM) which is taking place in Dubai this week.
Overall visitor arrivals to the emirate in Q1 grew by 8.3 per cent year-on-year.
With domestic tourism still the single largest contributor to Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism performance, the record arrivals in Q1 of this year were largely driven by growth from international source markets, which recorded a 11.3 per cent year-on-year rise over the first three months of the year.
Haitham Mattar, CEO, RAKTDA, said:“This year has started extremely strong for Ras Al Khaimah and we attribute the significant year-on-year increase in international visitors to RAKTDA’s strategic overseas promotional activities. During the course of the last year we implemented a multi-faceted approach in our trade and consumer-led promotions which have yielded increases from all our core international markets and emerging destinations.
“We work very closely with a number of travel partners across various markets, and through their support we anticipate prolonged visitor growth as we edge closer to our one million visitor target by the end of 2018.”
During Q1, hotels across the emirate registered average occupancy of 75.5 per cent, an increase of 6.2 per cent over the same period last year. Similar results were posted across all key hotel performance indicators, with RevPAR increasing by 2.5 per cent and room revenue swelling by 9.3 per cent. Similarly the average length of stay increased to 3.9 days year-to-date, up from 3.6 during Q1 2016, an increase of 9.6 per cent.
