(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has recorded about 162,000 visitors at the Entertainment City since it opened on August 1. The turnout is higher than what Qatar Summer Festival had achieved in six weeks last year.
QTA public relations and communication director Faisal al-Mohannadi said on Wednesday that many tourists from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE have visited the festival.
"We had seen an increasing number of visitors coming to the Entertainment City at the Doha Exhibition Centre from 1pm to midnight," al-Mohannadi noted, adding that they also recorded about 16,000 visitors during the weekends.
This was evident with the high occupancy rates in hotels and hotel apartments in Doha this time of the year compared with the figures last year.
Many tourists availed of the special packages developed by at least 26 members of the hospitality sector in Qatar as part of QTA's hotel promotions during the month-long festival.
Sales in many shops and boutiques at participating malls were "quite high," doubling their revenues since the start of the festival.
For the weekly raffle draws, the first draw, which was held at Ezdan Mall, recorded some 33,000 coupons while the second draw had 40,000.
The third draw will take place at Gulf Mall on Thursday and another set of cars (one BMW 7 series and one Mini Cooper) and cash prizes will be given away to winners.
The Doha Comedy Day, set for August 29 at the Qatar National Convention Centre, will serve as the finale of the QSF 2015. The show in Arabic will be hosted by Qatari comedian Hamad al-Ammari.
QTA has been doing many engagements on social media such as competitions to promote the show and for people to win free tickets.
"We expect the attendance to be high and the target is to sell 1,200 tickets and they have sold half of that amount so far," said Hamzeh Zahr, managing director of Carrot Social, the producer of the comedy show.
Ammari thanked QTA for supporting not only Qatari artistes but also local companies that produce such shows.
Comedy shows had been increasingly popular in the region especially with people from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to the Qatari comedian.
He observed that people in the region are willing to travel to watch comedy shows.
"Young comedians are now appearing more and more in social media and YouTube. They are seen across borders and many people want to see them in person," he added. "This is definitely a way to attract tourists."
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