OMAN: Oman Misses Out On Japanese Tourists Because Of Lack Of Direct Flights To Japan

Absence of direct flights is affecting the bilateral tourism relations between the Sultanate and Japan, which would otherwise be flourishing, according to a group of travel agents from Bangkok. Nearly thirty travel agents from Thailand flew in to Oman seeking better options to bring in more Japanese tourists to the country but it has been learnt that lack of direct connectivity is hampering the holiday dreams of Japanese.

“We are in talks with both sides, Oman and Japanese authorities but technical reasons such as aircraft availability, route availability and parking availability are some of the reasons sited,” Mitsugu Saito (pictured), Ambassador of Japan to Oman told the Observer.

Japanese passengers have options to fly with Oman Air, Emirates, Qatar Airways which are operating connection flights.
“At the moment, Japanese tourists have the options of flying via Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Doha, but they are unwilling to change equipment and spend time at the airport.”

“Although the whole flight is some 11 hours and some are via Bangkok which is consuming 3 to 4 hours more than the direct ones, there can be substantial change if direct service is established between the two countries,” Saito added.

“Since I joined this mission, there were questions as to why more Japanese tourists were not coming to Oman and I used some of my contacts in Thailand to get these travel agents sponsored by Oman Air and they are here to seek ways of improving the tourism relations between the two.”

“Oman has some of the rich touristic attractions such as mountains, sea and deserts along with traditional Arabic heritage and hospitality which are much appealing to the Japanese and we are marketing them in Tokyo.”

Last year, there was a high delegation visit from Oman to Japan and the delegation too felt the necessity of having direct flight services between the two countries.

“Around 60,000 Japanese live in Bangkok and they fly to Oman for holidays and the diplomatic mission in Muscat feels that there’s acute necessity to have direct services. NTT too has consented to extent their services if direct services are established.”

“I hope let’s do something to this by the next holiday season December to January,” he added. Ambassador further said that the present strategic approach that the embassy adopted was that, many tourists visit neighbouring Dubai and it is promoting Oman along with other regional countries in Tokyo.”

The second step is to promote Oman as part of other countries for a reasonable price. “We thus approached the headquarter to include Musandam as part of the regional tourism packages and it is doing very well”.

“We spoke to different carriers and we are expecting a positive result soon. Oman Air is increasing their destinations and services and we hope a direct service is in the pipeline.”

Some Japanese companies are involved in Oman’s Independent Projects (IPP) and Independent Water Projects (IWP) in Oman and Japanese brands have a strong base of automotive and other sectors here.