Abu Dhabi on track to meet 4.1m stretched guest target
OVER 205,000 PASSENGERS EXPECTED AT NEW ZAYED PORT CRUISE TERMINAL THIS SEASON
Abu Dhabi’s Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA) said it was expecting to meet its stretched target of 4.1 million guest arrivals this year.
Earlier this year, TCA said that an increase in visitors to Abu Dhabi in 2014 prompted the Authority to raise its guest targets for 2015 from 3.5 million guests to 3.9 million, with 4.1 million being the stretch target.
“The growth year to date is almost 20 per cent — many of [which] comes from our key guest markets that we are targeting. We are expecting to have higher demand in the future as more products, enablers, and attractions come online,” said Sultan Al Daheri, acting executive director of tourism at TCA.
In the first nine months of this year, total hotel guest arrivals was just over three million in the emirate, marking a 21 per cent jump compared to the same period last year, according to TCA’s figures.
He added that he was confident Abu Dhabi would be “one of the top destinations in the world” in five years as more tourism offerings come online, but declined to disclose guest targets for 2016 and the coming few years.
Asked about the impact of economic factors such as the depreciation in the euro and the rouble, Al Daheri said there was a “small reduction” from the Russian market and it was not that significant.
The Russian market has long accounted for a large sum of visitors to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, but analysts and hoteliers said they have seen a drop in Russian visitors this year on the back of a depreciation in the rouble and a stronger dollar, which the UAE dirham is pegged to.
“These indicators like currency rates, economic crisis, and many other aspects definitely have an impact on tourism, but our strategy is diversify and to have a different mix from different markets.
Another market
Even though we have [a drop] from one market, we are pushing to get more from another market to maintain the number of visitors. We are focusing on new, emerging markets like India and China, which will make a difference,” he said.
As for the future of tourism in Abu Dhabi, Al Daheri said that TCA was working on boosting diversification in the sector to attract even more demographics.
“Since the Louvre and the Guggenheim [museums] are coming up, cultural tourism is what we’re looking at now. Another one is ecotourism. Abu Dhabi Environment Agency opened the mangroves and the Al Wathba [Wetland] Reservation, so we have a couple of projects in the ecotourism,” he said.
Al Daheri made the comments yesterday at a ceremony to mark the opening of Abu Dhabi Ports’ new cruise terminal in Zayed Port.
The new terminal will help Abu Dhabi Ports serve a growing number of cruise liners and passengers visiting the emirate, as well as boost cruise tourism, which Al Daheri identified as a sector with much growth potential. Also speaking at the opening ceremony was Captain Mohammad Al Shamsi, chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Ports, who said he expected over 205,000 passengers to come through Zayed Port this season.
“We started the cruise business in Abu Dhabi in 2006. This season, we’re talking about five times the [passenger number] in 2006. We expect next year to [see] growth by 50,000 passengers,” the CEO said.