Tourists from overseas can now visit Oman – provided they can present two negative Covid-19 PCR tests.
The decision to resume issuing tourists visas was confirmed recently by the Supreme Committee to deal with Covid-19. The sultanate had stopped issuing all types of visas in March this year, at the height of the global pandemic.
According to the decision, visitors to Oman can only visit if they have a hotel booking or sponsorship from a local travel agency.
In terms of PCR tests, one must be carried out no more than 90 hours prior to departure and another conducted at the airport on arrival.
Visitors must also undertake a period of seven days quarantine on arrival – unless he stay is for less than a week – and quarantine for seven days once they have arrived back at their original destination.
“The Supreme committee decided to allow the issuance of tourist visas to enter the Sultanate, provided that the arrival of tourists is within the framework of tourist groups organised by hotels and tourism companies,” Oman News Agency reported.
In October, the Omani government reopened the country’s land borders with neighbouring countries to citizens and residents travelling to or from the sultanate and who have passed a series of Covid-19 tests. International commercial flights also resumed from the sultanate’s airports on October 1.
The latest relaxation comes as it was revealed that the total number of hotel guests in the country’s three-to-five-star hotels decreased by 53.9 percent as at the end of October. According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information, there were 646,841 guests, compared to over 1.4 million up to the same period last year.
To date, there have been 124,329 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Oman, with 1,435 deaths.
Follow us on
