Food festival a huge success: QTA

At least 80% of the nearly 200,000 visitors to the Qatar International Food Festival (QIFF) were satisfied with the activities at the annual event, Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has said.“The QIFF is one of the events in the festival calendar in which we are trying to attract tourists,” QTA's festivals and events director Mashal Shahbik said at a ceremony on Wednesday.The event saw QTA recognising their partners, stakeholders, volunteers and others who contributed to the success of the seventh edition of the annual festival that concluded recently.The QIFF, one of the major events in the country’s tourism calendar, broke its record of 170,000 visitors in 2015 by attracting an estimated 200,000 in this year’s edition. Some of these activities at various zones included cooking demonstrations at Qatar Airways’ Cooking Theatre, entertainment for all ages especially children, the Qatar-China Year of Culture, Doha Film Institute’s daily film screenings, and the nightly fireworks displays, among others.Out of the 200,000 visitors this year, around 30% were families, 22% couples, and 44% were groups of friends, QTA said. It added that around 77% of the visitors heard about the event from social media and through word of mouth.The event also saw 69% of visitors spending a minimum of three hours at the festival, held in three separate venues, particularly at the Museum of Islamic Art Park. QTA said 67% of visitors were “very satisfied” across QIFF’s locations including its two satellite venues - Katara - the Cultural Village and the Pearl-Qatar.According to the same survey, at least 50% of the respondents said they would travel from abroad to attend the event. In addition, 67% of the respondents would recommend visiting QIFF to their family, friends and colleagues.“Our survey respondents were diverse: 2% are under the 18-year-old bracket while 31% belong to the 18 to 25. At least 34% belong to the 26 to 35 years old; 22% to the 36 to 45; and 8% to the 46 to 50 bracket,” QTA said.The survey added that the biggest fraction of visitors were Qataris (56.5%) followed by expatriates in Qatar (40%), and tourists from GCC and other regions (3.5%).QTA also received positive feedback, comments and suggestions from visitors and residents on its social media pages, which was also part of their survey to further improve the culinary celebration next year.Some of these ideas include more benches and tables at the venue, longer duration of the festival and more parking areas. Besides getting more volunteers, organising more activities and offering variety of food, there were also suggestions for a bigger space and seating areas for the elderly and people with disabilities.