Qatar is ramping up its tourism investment drive as it seeks to build room capacity in preparation for the 2022 Fifa World Cup.
There are currently more than 65 hotel schemes under way or planned in the country, worth a total investment of more than $7 billion, according to a Meed Projects report.Among these are new properties to be run by brands such as JW Marriott, Hilton, Waldorf Astoria, Langham, Ibis, Mandarin Oriental, Holiday Inn and Centara. In total, the number of rooms in the construction pipeline is over 10,000, it said.As part of its commitment to hosting the World Cup, Qatar said it would aim to build an additional 40,000 rooms for the hundreds of thousands of fans expected to arrive in the country. These rooms would be contained within 240 different hotels ranging between two and five stars, including a cruise ship at Al-Wakrah with 6,000 rooms. These new rooms would substantially add to the existing 44,000 rooms Qatar had when it bid for the rights to host the World Cup in 2010.'Hotel building and tourism development in general in Qatar is going through unprecedented growth, as developers and operators prepare for the World Cup and the state’s National Tourism Sector Strategy 2030,' said Ed James, director of content and analysis at Meed Projects. 'The pressure of the event’s hard stop deadline has resulted in a frenzy of building activity as investors seek to capitalise on the thousands of visitors expected to attend the competition to support their teams.'Qatar’s 2030 tourism strategy, under the auspices of the Qatar Tourism Authority, aims to build on the World Cup investment to attract more than seven million tourists a year to the state by 2030, up from 1.2 million in 2012. At the same time, tourism spend is set to increase from $1.4 billion to $11 billion by 2030 when the sector is expected to account for about 5 per cent of Qatar’s GDP.'Qatar’s tourism strategy embraces a much longer term approach than just preparing for the World Cup', says James. 'Its objective is to create a stable and diversified market with more than 125,000 jobs. While the current raft of hotel projects are clearly aimed at the World Cup market in the short term, in the long run the investments are aimed at transforming the state into a regional tourism hub supported by world-class transport infrastructure, cultural attractions and the temperate winter climate.'