Specialist tourism firm sought to help Oman tap promising Chinese market

New momentum: Ministry steps up efforts to revive tourist inflows from China – one of the fastest growing source markets before the pandemic hit

CONRAD PRABHU / OMAN DAILY OBSERVER / 1 JULY 2023

MUSCAT: The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism is preparing to appoint a specialist tourism marketing company to help promote the Sultanate of Oman as a holiday destination across China – a potentially vast and attractive source market for the Omani tourism industry.

International firms, with proven expertise in destination marketing strategies, have been invited to bid for a contract to assist the Ministry in implementing Oman’s Marketing Strategy & Plan in the People’s Republic of China.

The proposed appointment of a tourism representative in China – ranked among the world’s biggest tourism source markets – builds on a series of initiatives by the Ministry, as well as the Omani government’s tourism development executive arm Omran Group – to encourage Chinese tourists to spend their holidays in Oman.

Those efforts are aimed at reviving what has been a strong uptrend in Chinese tourist inflows into Oman, until the Covid19 pandemic brought all air travel to a standstill globally in 2020. 

According to figures shared by the Ministry, visitors from China surged from 44,540 in 2018 to 107,446 a year later, representing a jump of 141 per cent – the strongest growth among source markets. Like Oman, holiday destinations around the world have been gearing up for a fresh wave of Chinese holidaymakers following Beijing’s decision, earlier this year, to end a 3-year-long travel ban linked to the pandemic.

Hoping to tap into this anticipated tide of Chinese outbound tourists, Oman has sought to build and strengthen partnerships with Chinese tourism stakeholders over the past year. At the Oman Tourism Forum, held under the auspices of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2022, a MoU was signed to support bilateral cooperation between Omani and Chinese industry representatives. Also on the occasion, Oman’s National Travel & Tourism Operator ‘Visit Oman’ signed an agreement with a leading Chinese tourism operator to help drive tourism traffic into Oman.

Last September, the Ministry hosted 12 Chinese tourism companies on an introductory trip to familiarize the visitors with Oman’s diverse tourism offerings. On the sidelines of the visit, the Ministry also organised bilateral meetings between the Chinese tourism companies and their local counterparts with the aim of enhancing communication and creating working relationships to boost traffic from China.

Seeking to add new momentum to these efforts, the Ministry is now seeking to appoint a tourism company to represent Oman in China. The selected company’s primary task is to “formulate and execute business development and media relations strategies and programmes”, according to the Ministry.

As part of this core function, the new contractor will be required to establish relationships of preference with the international trade and foster the establishment of co-marketing agreements. Further, it will be called to educate the trade in the variety of experiences that Oman can provide, its attributes and differentiators, while driving preference and consideration over competitor countries.

Besides, the company will be required to increase Oman’s visibility, identify opportunities in existing and new segments, facilitate relations with journalists and influencers, and be fully aligned with the Ministry’s overarching creative concept ‘Beauty Has An Address’.

The final deadline for submission of proposals is August 1, 2023.

An estimated 155 million Chinese tourists travelled abroad in 2019, spending an estimated $255 billion that year, making them the world’s biggest tourism spenders.