(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar is the second most tourism friendly destination in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked the country as the second most competitive travel and tourism destination in Mena in its 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report.
The UAE led the region and took 24th place globally, followed by Qatar (43rd), Bahrain (60th), Morocco (62nd) and Saudi Arabia (64th).
Globally, Spain emerged as the most tourism friendly destination, followed by France (2nd), Germany (3rd), the US (4th), the UK (5th), Switzerland (6th), Australia (7th), Italy (8th), Japan (9th) and Canada (10th).
The report analyses the performance of 141 economies through the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index and explores how the travel and tourism sector has responded to economic, security and health shocks over recent decades.
To come up with the ranking, the WEF assigned scores to each of the 141 economies around the world, based on their international openness, business environment, health and hygiene and ground and port infrastructure, among other indicators.
Across the 14 dimensions, Qatar scored highly on a supportive Business Environment (ranking 3rd globally), Safety and Security (2nd globally), Human Resources and Labour Market (14th globally), and Price Competitiveness (19th globally).
Qatar Tourism Authority's (QTA) latest year-to-date (YTD) statistics through April-end indicated the phenomenal growth over the last several years is continuing in 2015.
YTD visitor arrivals reached 1.086 million in the first third of the year, representing an 11 percent rise over the same period last year and putting Qatar on track to surpass 3 million visitors by 2015-end.
Similarly, the average occupancy rate across all tourist accommodation properties is 79 percent, up from 75 percent during the same period in 2014, despite seven new hotel properties and about 1,600 rooms added to the market between April 2014 and 2015.
"Most of the economies in this region are price-competitive destinations and several have built significant T&T (Travel and Tourism) industries in recent years.
"However, concerns about security have limited international arrivals, even though secluded tourism resorts are far from the most dangerous areas.
"Improvement is also needed in international openness and environmental sustainability," said the report.
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