OMAN – A Convention and Exhibition Centre next to Muscat’s airport is set to be built by 2014 as part of $8bn worth of property developments across the country. They will include hotels, a shopping mall as well as the Gulf state’s largest conference centre.
Investment arm of the tourism ministry, Omran, will fund the convention centre project which is set to have an auditorium for 6,000 people, a shopping mall, a business park and four hotels.
Omran Vice-President Abdul Wahid Al Farsi told Bloomberg news in Muscat: “We just started the platform work for the convention centre. The project is valued at more than 700m rials ($1.8bn)”.
Tourism contributed three per cent to gross domestic product in 2009, a figure the government is aiming increase to 10 percent by 2019.
This first phase is due to be completed in mid 2013 will include a hotel managed by Intercontinental. Five other hotel builds are planned including The Fort, a 120-room five-star boutique hotel designed to resemble an ancient desert fort.
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