Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA)’s role is to organize, enable, and supervise the tourism industry development in Qatar, as well as to represent and promote Qatar as a quality tourism destination for leisure, business, education, and sport. Qatar tourism authority gets actively involved in organizing events and promotions which positively reflect on the general image of Qatar as an evolving tourism destination. Attracting increasing number of visitors Qatar received 964,000 visitors in 2007, representing an increase of 2% compared to 2006. 95% of travelers to Qatar come on a business visit or to attend an international conference or one of the various exhibitions held in the country. Taking advantage of Qatar’s key location Increasing the number of travelers coming to Qatar is the basis of Qatar tourism authority’s new strategy: to grow the tourism industry in Qatar by 20% in the next five years. This will be delivered through a variety of methods including attracting travelers flying through Doha, thanks to the key location of Qatar, between Europe, Africa and Asia. During the 2007/2008 financial year, 10 million passengers traveled through Doha International Airport, thanks to Qatar Airways. The Qatar national carrier currently operates a modern fleet of 64 Airbus and Boeing aircraft from its Doha hub to 83 key business and leisure cities across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, the Far East and North America. Qatar Airways averaged nearly 40% annual growth in both passenger numbers and revenue in 2007 and its fleet will almost triple in size to reach 110 aircrafts by 2018. New orders for planes will total US $16 billion. An estimated 50 million passengers will come through the New Doha International Airport when it opens in 2012, with a capacity to handle 320,000 planes. Qatar tourism authority is targeting 5% of these passengers to stay an extra 48 hours in the country beyond their initial scheduled stopover, totaling 2.5 million travelers.

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