Dubai the 7th most visited city in the world

Emirate trumps New York and other popular destinations in Europe and the Americas

Dubai received one of the highest numbers of visitors from around the world this year, with millions of tourists visiting the emirate.

UK-based market research firm Euromonitor International on Tuesday released its Top 100 City Destinations 2018 report, a ranking of cities most attractive to international tourists. Dubai was in seventh position, ahead of New York and many other popular destinations in Europe and the Americas.

Euromonitor reviewed last year’s international arrivals in 600 cities around the world to find out which destinations stood out in terms of tourist traffic.

The report indicated that there were more visitors snapping photos of landmarks and checking into hotels in Dubai than in any other cities of interest in the Middle East and other tourist hotspots like Rome, Amsterdam, Milan, Vienna, Prague, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Vancouver and Toronto.

The research firm’s latest data showed that Dubai’s international arrivals increased by 6.2 per cent to nearly 17 million. In addition, it is the only city in the Middle East and Africa that showed up in the top 10 most visited cities globally.

During the first half, tourist arrivals in the emirate topped 8 million, according to the latest official data.

Overall, Hong Kong was ranked first with nearly 30 million tourists, followed by Bangkok, London and Singapore and Macau, in that order.

Dubai intends to attract 20 million visitors by 2020 and has been actively promoting itself as a top destination for people travelling for leisure or business.

A number of initiatives have been put in place in order to boost arrivals, including visa extensions, visa-on-arrival policies, not charging transit tourists for up to 48 hours and optional extendedstay visas for up to 96 hours.

“Dubai is one of the most innovative cities in the world, with a host of new and smart technologies continuously introduced in the city state. This includes smart palms on its beaches and successful tests of flying taxis,” Euromonitor said.

international arrivals seen by emirate, up 6.2%