By IANS
Sharjah : With hotel occupancy achieving record highs, Sharjah has become one of the leading destinations in the region – successfully attracting a worldwide influx of both tourists and investors.
Figures released Wednesday by Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority show that the volume of tourists to the emirate last year reached an astonishing 1.3 million, compared to 600,000 in 2001, according to the WAM news agency.
The overall occupancy rate in the emirate’s hotels and hotel apartments reached 82 percent.
To accommodate this clear increase in the number of tourists, the Emirate has augmented the size of its hospitality workforce, in addition to its number of hotels and hotel apartments.
While the total number of hotels and hotel apartments increased to 74 in 2006 (24 hotels and 50 hotel apartments), the first quarter of this year saw 15 new hotels enter the market (2 hotels and 13 hotel apartments).
With this, the total number of hotel facilities in Sharjah rose to 89. These new hotels have taken the total number of rooms in the entire emirate to over 7,000.