Ras Al Khaimah is on track to hit its 900,000 visitor target for 2017 after record growth in number of arrivals in the first nine months of this year. The internationa arrivals recorded from January to September 2017 reveal a 9% growth on the same period in 2016.
RAK Tourism Development Authority, which develops and regulates the emirate’s tourism infrastructure and initiates its domestic and overseas promotions, said visitor arrivals to the emirate reached 631,617 while guest nights, occupancy and length of stay also grew in the same period.
Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism sector continued to see growth in visitor numbers buoyed by significant increases from markets including Russia, Poland and India, according to CBRE. Its Q1 2017 RAK MarketView report said the average length of stay of Indian guests also grew by 10.6% during the same period while visitors from the UAE, Germany, Russia and the UK remained key source markets.
The emirate has also announced the launch of the world’s longest zip line at a press conference with a tentative launch date as December 2017. This will mark the completion of phase 1 of the entire project with phase 2 slated for a May 2018 completion date and phase 3 in December 2018.
here have also been a slew of hotel signings in Ras Al Khaimah: Millennium Hotels and Resorts has signed a five-star resort in RAK and US$50m Avani Al Marjan Island RAK resort broke ground earlier this year.
RAK’s tourism trends have also translated into solid hotel occupancy and revenue performances, CBRE said.
According to data from STR, average occupancy rates were up 6.8% year-to-date (Jan-Mar) to 76.3%, versus the same period last year, whilst RevPAR’s rose 2.3% during the same period despite a 4% decline in average daily rates which continued to fall. Overall room revenues also rose, up 8.1% on the same period last year.
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