THAMRAIT: The first Empty Quarter Festival, organised by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism in cooperation with a number of public and private establishments in Dhofar Governorate, wrapped up after 17 days.
The closing ceremony included a training workshop on the skills of collective work, the challenge of the Empty Quarter coordinates and a 5-km walkathon, in addition to tree plantation and clean-up campaigns.
Khalid bin Abdullah al Abri, Director-General of Heritage and Tourism in Dhofar Governorate, said that the organising of the first edition of the Empty Quarter Festival comes within the framework of efforts exerted by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism to encourage domestic tourism and the utilisation of tourist and natural potentials of the Sultanate of Oman.
Commenting to ONA, Abri said that the festival managed to draw a great number of tourists and visitors from inside and outside the Sultanate of Oman thus stirring winter tourism in the desert of Dhofar.
The ministry is going to evaluate the first edition of the Empty Quarter Festival to identify the challenges it faced. The organising committee conducted an electronic survey to identify the opinions and suggestions of the festival-goers for the purpose of improvement in the second edition, Al Abri said adding that the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism seeks to study the improvement of the festival and is mulling to attract regional competitions in the coming editions.
