• 10,500 use Qatar stopover in January
• Packages start from $14
• 3,500 hotel keys added in 2025

An initiative encouraging passengers passing through Qatar to stay a night in the country has already sold more than 100,000 room nights this year.

Launched in August 2021, the Discover Qatar Stopover Programme allows travellers with Qatar Airways and its codeshare partners to book overnight stays from anywhere between one and four nights at lower rates.

Packages start at $14 for one night at a four-star hotel and go up to $83 for the luxury option. 

More than 10,500 stopover visitors used the programme in January, Discover Qatar said, up 58 percent on the same month last year. 

The number of participants taking up the option between April 2024 and January 2025 increased 165 percent year on year.

“Qatar Stopover Programme is central to positioning Qatar as a leading global destination,” said Discover Qatar senior vice president, Steven Reynolds.

The programme’s growth has been attributed to a combination of Visit Qatar’s financial support and strong demand driven by marketing campaigns.

Visitors from the US, UK, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands are among those who use it most. 

Anum Hassan, head of research, Qatar, at real estate consultancy ValuStrat, said the initiative is providing a significant uplift for the hospitality sector.

“In 2017, Qatar’s implementation of the transit visa programme and ‘Plus Qatar’ led to a 39 percent surge in stopover passengers in 2018, with Hamad International Airport serving a record 39 million passengers by 2019,” Hassan told AGBI. 

“The current stopover programme aims to replicate this success by offering a range of hotel options through Discover Qatar, driving increased transit traffic and heightened demand for hotel stays.”

Hassan said the hospitality sector emerged as the standout performer in Qatar’s real estate market in 2024, which was “supported by a well-structured events calendar that sustained visitor inflows”. 

“Annual occupancy rates remained above 66 percent even during the typically slower summer months, showcasing Qatar’s strategic efforts to position itself as a year-round destination,” Hassan said in ValuStrat’s 2024 Real Estate Research Review report.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the estimated total hospitality stock was 40,405 keys, according to Qatar Tourism, two-thirds of which were four and five-star hotels. Just 7.5 percent was classified within the one to three-star segments.

Valustrat said new hotel openings are expected to add more than 3,500 hotel keys to the market in 2025. New openings include Swissotel Corniche Park Towers, Andaz Hotel West Bay, The Doha Edition and Corinthia Doha. 

Qatar welcomed just over 5 million visitors last year, a 25 percent increase from the previous year.