Qatar welcomes the world at WTM London

Taking part in this global event, Qatar is strongly represented by a large number of strategic partners including the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Cultural Village Foundation, KATARA, Souq Waqef, the Diplomatic Club, in addition to a range of tour operators and hotels such as Discover Qatar, Regency Holidays, Century hotel, Coral Hotel Doha, Ezdan Hotel & Suites, Grand Hyatt Doha, InterContinental Doha - The City.

La Cigale Hotel, LaVilla Group of Hotels, Moevenpick Tower and Suites Doha, Oryx Rotana Hotel, Retaj Hotels & Hospitality, Swiss-Belhotel Doha, The Ritz-Carlton Doha, The Torch Doha Hotel, Unique Choice and the Wyndham Grand Regency Hotel.

Hosted by QTA, the Qatar pavilion is located on stand ME 240 and will help position Qatar as the world's most upcoming destination and a central hub in the region for business, leisure, culture, education and sport. QTA is showcasing a series of traditional Qatari cultural activities as well as henna and Arabic hospitality with coffee and dates.

Staged annually in London, WTM is the leading global event for the travel industry. A vibrant four-day business to business event, WTM presents a diverse range of destinations from all over the world and travel industry sectors to UK and International travel trade professionals. It is a unique opportunity for the whole global travel trade to meet, network, negotiate and conduct business under one roof.

The Qatar Pavilion highlights the unique aspects of Qatar that mark it as an evolving luxurious twenty first century tourism destination - the latest global stop-off in the region to welcome the world with its distinctive hospitality, culture and heritage.

Mr. Issa bin Mohamed al-Mohannadi, Chairman of QTA, commented, "Our continuous participation in WTM falls in line with QTA's strategy to represent and promote Qatar to the rest of the world as today's latest quality tourism destination for leisure, business, education, and sport. Ideal for the tourist's agenda, Doha offers a unique combination of world class services and luxurious hospitality as well as superb international award winning leisure provision with state of the art facilities to appeal to travelers from around the world. The year 2011 saw a massive jump in the number of visitors to Qatar with a considerable increase in the number of arrivals coming from Europe and a significant jump in the total number of tourists coming from all around the world."

"Qatar has already proved its ability to successfully host large scale international events such as the World Petroleum Congress and the Asian Games in 2011. We have made significant investments in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector to position Qatar as an upscale destination with a growing reputation for quality and excellence. These assets include an increasing number of sustainable and sizeable exhibition centers, which have helped to attract the calibre of high profile global events. Rich in culture and heritage and home to some of the world's best known academic institutions, Qatar is today's ultimate tourism destination offering refined luxury and the very latest business amenities as well as superb sports and leisure facilities," added Mr. al-Mohannadi.

This year Qatar was the chosen venue to host of the largest United Nation Environmental Summit COP 18 in December 2012 in addition to its win of the Bid for the world's largest sports event, the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

QTA is promoting Qatar especially to the UK and European markets, by focusing on, the luxury travel and leisure sectors, among them associations, conference organizers, and large-group travel organizers.

Qatar plans to be a destination which is ready to welcome the world, thanks to a substantial outlay in tourism infrastructure by the State of Qatar. These include the construction of 130 new hotels, resorts and other leisure facilities, not to mention a new international airport, a new port with cruise passenger terminal, a new railway network, with metro, street trams and people carrier, as well as readying some 12 football stadiums by 2022.

Qatar was named "World's Leading Business Travel Destination", at last year's WTM Award ceremony held in Dubai to celebrate the best of the travel and tourism industry.