With Visitors far and wide visiting the city of Doha in the coming days for a number of events, conferences, exhibitions and concerts, one can not be mistaken to describe Qatar as the emerging tourism haven in the Middle East. With the city’s emergence as the Cultural Capital in the region there is need for an improved city taxi service. Tourism thrives where there are better and improved transport systems apart from the popular means of air, water, rail, the land which is car suffers most because of neglect and poor insight into city taxi service. City service taxi is normally provided by a company under direct government supervision, and its expected to reflect a unique brand about its people and culture. The main taxi company in Doha is Karwa and the taxis operate on a meter system. The minimum charge is 10QR. Karwa are cheap by the way compared to registered Private car service. However, they are often difficult to find — Karwa taxis are light blue and nowhere to be seen, unless you are really lucky and patient. Speaking with a number of people if there are enough taxis to meet the needs of customers in Doha, Nadia a regular Karwa user, said “it’s so funny why you can’t get a taxi unless its booked 24hours in advance, so where is the efficiency in the service, there are few taxis with so many people”. Apparently the current situation is unacceptable and pathetic; Karwa cabs do not meet demand. One should be able to get a cab within 30 minutes of calling, or an hour at peak times. If that was the case I’d say they were meeting demand, said Nabil Hussein, a visitor to Doha. If you are anywhere in town and there’s no taxi in sight, your only option is to walk into any good hotel and ask them to call you one - which they won’t. However they will offer you their limousine service... which costs 4 times more than karwa taxis but which will also get you to your destination fast. There are so Many issues like Karwa taxis are not available when you need them. The cars are dirty inside and stink. So are most of the drivers due to exceptionally long hours they work and don’t care about the cleanliness of the cab. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=May2009&file=Local_News2009051723647.xml

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