By A Staff Reporter - MUSCAT — The Tourism Ministry, Oman Air and Muscat’s 4- and 5-star hotels have devised a totally new strategy to attract visitors from the UK and Europe, with a highly competitive tactical campaign to be launched next month. Dr Rajha bint Abdulameer bin Ali, Minister of Tourism, said that “the campaign, under the theme ‘Now is the time!’ has been made possible by a level of positive co-operation and focus unseen in the industry before.

“As a result, we have an exciting and highly competitive campaign to launch that expands on past summer campaigns and demonstrates that our national carrier and leading hotels are working in Oman’s interest. This is a clear step-up in industry capability that will lead to greater industry profitability,” she said. To date marketing efforts in the UK and Europe have been aimed at building awareness in Oman as a destination, with hotel and air fares offered differently by many companies.

The new summer campaign offers highly competitive 6- and 7-day holiday packages, return air fares and accommodation under a single campaign banner. Packages will be common-rated across Europe in a further effort to attract more first-time visitors. The campaign will run from April 12 to October 1, 2010 and will be officially launched at ITB Berlin (Europe’s largest travel show 10-12 March).

The minister said: “The Ministry of Tourism will provide special funding to support the campaign. This will be used with travel companies that can at least match our support in terms of promotional spend, so overall promotional effort will be at least doubled. This fresh campaign with leveraged promotions will draw international attention to Oman.”

Oman’s new focus on tactical marketing is made possible by Oman Air’s European expansion with services to Munich, Frankfurt and Paris from last October, adding to daily services to London. Oman Air will allocate a record 12,000 seats to the campaign, its largest ever to a single campaign.

Peter Hill, Oman Air’s Chief Executive said “Oman Air is delighted with the initiative. It’s exciting and puts into practice everything Oman Air is trying to achieve: working effectively with our industry partners to position Oman as the preferred destination in the Gulf. This is a welcome step-up in the way we market Oman as the airline spreads its wings,” he said.

Speaking for the hotels involved in the campaign, Arbind Shrestha, General Manager of Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa said, “The campaign comes at the right time and demonstrates the industry is working to a single vision. We also need to look forward and apply this experience to future tactical campaigns involving more hotels and tour operators, and I know this is a shared view as well.” The Ministry and Oman Air will be meeting Oman’s hotels in coming weeks to finalise a summer campaign for the GCC and Salalah.