The travel and tourism sector in Qatar has great potential for growth and prudent entrepreneurs can expect to reap rich dividends from investments made in this field, the Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) has said.
Giving tips to open and successfully run travel and tourism agencies in the country, a ministry advisory said many areas, including capital Doha, are not adequately covered by such offices.
Highlighting the scope for new businesses, the MEC said: “The active licensees in this field are mostly concentrated in Al Rayyan area (32 licences), followed by Doha (11), Umm Salal (6), Al Wakrah (5) and Al Zakhira (2). They together include 332 travel and 237 tourism offices. The number of internal tourism offices amounted to only 14, travel agencies and tourism companies seven, and firms offering land tourism involving vehicles, three.”
According to the MEC, the sector is grossly untapped and hence holds promising investment prospective. Comparing the active licences in the field to the population of the corresponding area, the MEC stressed that the field has promising investment prospects.
“In the Al Rayyan area, one licensee serves around 18,928 persons and for Doha that figure is 86,950 persons. In Umm Salal one licensee caters to 15,139 people, in Al Wakrah 59,807 people and each active licensee at Al Khor and Al Zakhira currently serves about 101,015 persons.”
For starting a travel and tourism agency, an entrepreneur has to first secure adequate finances after conducting a well-prepared work plan and feasibility study.
Other steps include finding a suitable location for the office, which ideally should be near key places housing businesses such as the service industry, banks and airline offices. The company’s activities should comply with the standards and requirements of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) .
Provisions have to be made for expenses like office rent, equipment, water, electricity and phone bills, salaries, vehicles and the security sums to be deposited with IATA and airlines. “Variable costs include the deposits for room bookings, getting enough stock of air tickets, cash in the bank account of the company and the cost for advertising.”
airlines were still refusing to sell her a ticket. “Now I am going from one airline company to another to convince them about the court’s decision.”
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