Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) overseas offices heads and stakeholders in the tourism sector presented their marketing plans for 2016 at a meeting in Doha.
At their first quarterly framework marketing summit for the year, QTA’s GCC, UK, France, Germany, Southeast Asia, and Italy offices presented “qualitative and quantitative reports reflecting their 2015 achievements,” along with their targets and strategies for 2016. 
In 2015, the overseas offices organised familiarisation trips to Qatar for 120 representatives of international trade media as well as 172 travel agents. The number of tour operators selling trips to Qatar increased to 188 while more than 2,200 independent travel agents registered for QTA’s online Tawash programme, which helps them develop expertise on Qatar and its tourism offering. More than 1,200 graduated from the programme. 
Last year also saw the launch of the new Qatar destination brand, which will form the core of QTA’s marketing and promotion efforts in 2016, as well as building on Qatar’s presence in international travel and trade shows. 
“To maximise the positive impact of the nation’s marketing efforts and resources, it is vital that all parties focus on promoting the key attractions that give Qatar its distinctive cultural edge,” QTA’s chief marketing and promotion officer Rashed al-Qurese said. “It is a question of synergy.”
“We continue to avoid any dissipation or fragmentation of Qatar’s message and ensure we create a strong and positive Qatar brand positioning that continues to resonate in our key overseas markets,” he said.
Tourism is expected to play an important role in the global economy in 2016, with dropping fuel prices rendering it cheaper to travel, QTA said in a press statement.
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s recently released 2015 report, tourism showed surprising resilience as it grew by 4.4% in the past year, despite global security challenges. 
Marketing Qatar internationally involves close collaboration between the public and private sectors since hotels, other tourist facilities and services form key factors in the selection of the tourism products that QTA promotes worldwide, QTA noted. 
The summit programme provided networking opportunities for all QTA marketing personnel to meet private sector representatives. It also allowed QTA’s overseas office representatives with opportunities to interact with their counterparts in Qatar.