Dubai sees 2% quarterly jump in visitor numbers

The emirate welcomed 4.7m visitors between the months of January and March

Despite growing currency pressures, Dubai’s tourism authority said that the sector rallied strongly in the first three months of 2018.

Figures released yesterday showed that Dubai continued to retain and grow its share of visitors from across global markets.

Welcoming 4.7 million international overnight tourists from January to March, the emirate posted a stable 2 per cent increase in traffic versus the same period last year, as reported by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism).

The tourism body said in a statement that leading source markets continued to show their enthusiasm for Dubai, as the top three — India, Saudi Arabia and the UK — retained their positions versus 2017.

Recording an impressive 7 per cent year-on-year increase to deliver 617,000 visitors, India helped level out the slightly down secondplaced Saudi Arabia (which slipped 1 per cent) and the steeper decline in visitation from third-placed UK (down 8 per cent).

In an interview on Tuesday, Dubai Tourism’s chief executive said that he would welcome Indians being granted visa-on-arrival status to the emirate.

Asked which countries he would like to see Dubai open up to more, Issam Kazim, CEO, Dubai Tourism, told Gulf News: “India for sure. For sure. That would be the easiest one for me to look at.”

Meanwhile, Russia ended the quarter in fourth place, continuing its upward trajectory by topping the growth charts with a stellar 106 per cent increase over the first quarter of 2017, delivering 259,000 tourists, benefiting from availability of visa-onarrival facilities for Russian citizens from early last year.