Oman eases visa rules for tourists from Russia, India and China to boost tourism

Welcoming the decision, Vijay Handa, cluster general manager, Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve, said: “This is going to add to the ease of travel of many who want to visit this beautiful country. Undoubtedly, this is a very positive indicator for the tourism industry, which is seeing regular and steady growth. Especially these countries have a lot of potential travellers. It’s the beginning of the efforts made by the Ministry of Tourism and Omran’s initiatives that are showing results.”

Jasim Al Balushi, deputy head of Education and Professional Development, Caledonian College, said: “If more tourism comes to Oman soon, the industry will develop and more students will think of a career in this field. Right now, tourism is very underdeveloped in Oman and there need to be more facilities for tourists who come here. If you go to other countries, you see a lot of stalls displaying local goods and produce outside popular areas; you have car services for people, where they show and take tourists around the country, so we can have these here as well. Then you can have better entertainment options for people as well. When you go to the Seeb beach for example, what do you have? Hardly any stalls and facilities so this could change as well.”
 

Tourist potential

A member of a top tourism consulting agency said: “The government has been considering loosening regulations for people from countries, such as India and China, due to the tourist potential in these countries. There is a large Indian community in Oman and leveraging that Oman can bring in tens of thousands of Indian tourists, who are not looking to go far away to Americas and Europe, but would rather stay close to home by coming to Oman. This is a good start and the Omani government will have other plans to increase tourism from these growing Asian countries in the pipeline. This is one of their policies to achieve Vision 2040.”