BY RAYNALD C RIVERA
DOHA: Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) is working on creating cultural tourism products and enhancing existing cultural sites across Qatar to increase tourist arrivals in the country.
“We are thinking of creating different portfolios of tourism products. It could be a cultural village or a handicrafts market — a set of products that could make Qatar more attractive,” said Erik Johansson, QTA Adviser.
Johansson was speaking to the local media on the sidelines of the UNWTO Regional Capacity Building Course on Cultural Tourism Product Development, which concluded yesterday at Al Mirqab Hotel in Souq Waqif.
“One of our aims is to enhance cultural sites. We are working on enhancing the sites, preparing them for tourists. We need to build more facilities like restaurants, cafes, car parks and toilets, all facilities that tourists need when they visit these cultural destinations,” he said.
In collaboration with Qatar Museums, QTA is in the process on putting the programme together for the sites, which will run in several phases, he added.
More than 40 delegates from countries in the MENA region participated in the five-day workshop, the second in a series of workshops being held under an agreement signed between QTA and UNWTO last February.
The first regional capacity building workshop was held last May and focused on tourism strategy. It was attended by 35 delegates from 10 countries.
The cultural tourism product development workshop, Johansson said, was organised “to enhance the skills of the tourism industry in Qatar and the region. We wanted the participants to improve their skills and create cultural tourism products so that we can increase the number of tourist arrivals to the country and the region through cultural tourism.”
“QTA is organising a number of courses in different topics because we are extremely committed to building the capacity and skills of the tourism industry and we want to position Qatar as a hub in tourism education through these initiatives,” he said, adding the next workshop would be held in November.
At the workshop the participants learned skills for assessing existing cultural tourism products and designing new ones which will be applied in their own countries to boost tourism.
During the course of the workshop, the participants visited tourist spots in the country, including those in Al Zubarah, Al Jumail and Al Jasasiya, and proposed how to improve tourism there, he added.
THE PENINSULA
