India powers Dubai tourism numbers
Dubai is on the way to becoming the most-visited city in the world... some time before 2030
Christopher Lund,
Head of hotels at Colliers International Mena
Dubai is moving very well in the direction of smart cities... to attract the new generation
Ammar Kanaan,
Group general manager of Central Hotels
dubai — The Dubai tourism industry maintained its steady growth in the first nine months of this year, driven by traditional source markets India, Saudi Arabia and the UK.
According to Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing, Russia, China and Germany witnessed strong double-digit growth as the number of visitors reached 11.58 million compared to 11.57 million in the same period last year. Though the growth was small, it was steady considering the geopolitical situation and overall economic slowdown in some parts of the region, as well as the stronger dirham against Asian markets.
Tourists from India dipped marginally to 1.469 million while visitor arrivals from Russia grew 60 per cent year-on-year to 460,000. Chinese visitors jumped 12 per cent to 641,000, while German tourists grew 15 per cent to 388,000 during the nine-month period.
According to official figures, around 20 per cent of overnight visitors came from Western Europe, 19 per cent from the GCC, 17 per cent from South Asia, 11 per cent from Southeast Asia and 10 per cent from the Mena. Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe accounted for 7 per cent while the Americas showed a slight increase to 7 per cent. Africa also witnessed a marginal growth to 6 per cent and Australasia maintained 2 per cent.
Helal Almarri, director-general of Dubai Tourism, said the first three quarters of 2018 have seen consistent interest from conventional feeder regions, complemented by some noteworthy spikes in high-volume drivers and strong growth in more emerging markets as Dubai continues to actively target a diversified global base of travellers.
“With 11.58 million tourists to date this year, we have maintained our position as the fourth mostvisited city in the world, according to the 2018 MasterCard Global Cities Index, and will continue to work towards delivering stability throughout the fourth quarter despite wider macro-economic challenges,” Almarri added.
Industry analysts and executives believe the emirate is on track to grow it ranking among the mostvisited cities.
Christopher Lund, head of hotels at Colliers International Mena, said in 2017, Dubai was ranked by Mastercard the fourth most-visited city in the world by international tourists, after Bangkok, London and Paris.
“We expect Dubai to jump to third place in 2020 and second place in the 2021-23 period. Dubai is on its way to becoming the mostvisited city in the world, which we estimate could happen sometime before 2030. The emirate is well on track to achieve this goal by developing its tourism infrastructure [airlines, airports, ports, Metro], lodging accommodation [hotels, resorts, hotel apartments, vacation homes] and tourism offerings [integrated resorts, theme parks, landmarks, new shopping concepts, etc],” Lund said.
Ali Ozbay, director of marketing at Shaza Hotels, believes Dubai will be up for the ambitious mission to become the most-visited city. But in order to achieve this task, the emirate has to attract 25 millionplus visitors a year by 2025. “Dubai is seeking to develop an economy less dependent on fossil fuels, more on the variety of experiences to keep tourists coming.”
Dubai is seeking to develop an economy less dependent on fossil fuels, more on the variety of experiences to keep tourists coming
Ali Ozbay, Director of marketing at Shaza Hotels
Ammar Kanaan, group general manager of Central Hotels, said the extent of development that the emirate has seen is incredible but there are still a lot of things that have to be done in various sectors to achieve its goal of being the most-visited city.
“This is not only related to the availability of rooms, accessibility of the destination, connectivity by airlines or infrastructure. There needs to be unique selling points to attract different markets. Whether it is leisure, business, Mice, wellness, medical, educational or mass tourism, requirements of all segments have to be met at an affordable price,” he added.