Oman Economic Review – July 2019

COVER STORY

24 July 2019

are looking to privatise the portfolio,

allowing foreign investors, pension

funds, private companies to invest in

the tourism sector, without building

their own hotels but buying shares in a

company that owns these hotels. We are

working on a company structure that

will allow investors to participate in the

ownership. This will be developed over

the next two years.

Omran has outlined massive

investment and business

opportunities in Madinat Al Irfan

and Mina Sultan Qaboos Waterfront.

Can you talk about the current

status of these projects?

Both the projects are proceeding

more or less at the same pace, and are

entering the stage of detailed planning

and getting authority approvals. MSQ

project was signed earlier so this will

be ahead of the Madinat Al Irfan.

They have already constructed the

experience centre at MSQ which will

be opened to the public in September

this year. The experience centre will

enrich visitors’ experience with the

heritage of Muttrah and showcase

details of the approved master plan for

the waterfront destination. The tender

on phase 1 is going on as we speak

and once they finalise the tender and

get all the approvals, we are expecting

the construction to start in the first

quarter of 2020.

Can you talk about other iconic

projects that are going to change

Oman’s tourism landscape in the near

future?

We have got a lot in our plate. We are

going to redevelop the InterContinental

hotel site. The hotel is 40 years old

and needs an upgrade both internally

and externally and we are looking at a

master plan that will incorporate the

old hotel and pick up the new W hotel

and the Royal Opera House. We are

looking at an urban plan that integrates

What are the major projects expected
to be completed during 2019 and
2020? And how are they going to
enhance the capacity of Oman’s
tourism sector?
We are opening two hotels in 2019: We
have already opened W hotel recently
at Shati al Qurum and will be opening
JW Marriot hotel at Oman Convention
and Exhibition Centre (OCEC) later
this year. We will also be opening the
conventional centre theatre which has
a capacity of 3,500 people, and this will
bring to completion the whole OCEC
complex, and we are looking to have
a former opening of the complex in
November 2019.

We are also opening two smaller hotels
of 40-odd rooms each at Al Ashkharah
in Salalah, catering to the domestic
tourism market. They were closed for
refurbishing and we will be reopening
them under the Atana brand in August
this year. Our properties range from
large, internationally managed hotels to
smaller domestic hotels. We have in our
portfolio over 16 hotels of varying sizes,
ten of which are run by international
operators while six are run by ourselves
under the Atana brand.

In addition, a Jumeirah hotel will be
opened in 2020 at Muscat Bay, one of
our joint ventures with Saraya Holdings
Oman. So altogether, by the end of 2020,
we will be adding over 900 extra rooms
in the market, out of which close to 700
rooms will be ready by the end of 2019.
In total, currently we have about 2,500
rooms ranging from three to five star
hotels and up and down the country. We
are the largest hotel owner in the market.

However, in the future, the government
doesn’t need to be the largest owner
of the hotels in Oman. Therefore, we

IN FULL SWING

Peter Walichnowski, CEO of Omran, talks

about the current status of Oman’s major

tourism projects and his company’s role in

implementing National Tourism Strategy.

Excerpts from an interview

We have in our

portfolio over 16

hotels of varying

sizes, ten of

which are run

by international

operators while six

are run by ourselves

under the Atana

brand