Ras Al Khaimah tourism authority reports strong start to 2016

Ras Al Khaimah / Emirates Business

Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority has announced an increase of 23.7 percent in occupancy across the emirate’s hotels and resorts for the month of January 2016. Figures from the industry for the first month of the year show that 2016 is off to a strong start for Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism sector with hotels reporting increases across key performance indicators.
Haitham Mattar, CEO, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority said: “We recently reported our 2015 full year visitor figures which showed another year of growth and these results for January 2016 further demonstrate the strong position of the emirate. Under the visionary guidance of His Highness Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, the Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah; we are making good progress towards our Vision for 2018 of attracting 1m visitors. We finished 2015 with some fantastic results and already have a lot to be proud of this year – of course the hard work remains and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with our public and private sector partners to deliver even better figures in the following months.”
Compared to January 2015, hotels in the emirate reported a 10.3 percent year-on-year increase in Rev PAR. In addition, the emirate’s hotels reported occupancy rate of 62.2 percent, up by 23.7 percent when compared to January 2015.
Attracting visitors from around the world, Ras Al Khaimah’s top source markets when comparing January 2016 to the same month in 2015 were Germany, Russia, the UK, India and Finland. Visitors from Germany increased by 167 percent compared to January 2015 while the emirate welcomed 30 percent and 153 percent more visitors from Russia and Finland respectively.
“There are various factors that contribute to this growth, from our collaborative work with the hotel sector to efforts by the wider government instituations to promote Ras Al Khaimah as a leading destination for business and leisure travel on the global tourism stage, through our aggressive PR & marketing efforts and strategic alliances with key partners in key and potential source markets.