Successfully marching towards the goal of 20 million tourists by the year 2020, Dubai has achieved a 7.5% growth in tourist arrivals in 2017.
The tourists rates grows in the emirates with a strong increase in the Indian and Chinese visitors. Dubai Tourism figures released on Tuesday showed that tourist arrivals increased 7.5 per cent to 11.58 million in the first nine months of this year and are set to surpass last year’s 14.9 million overnight visitors.
Due to the good weather and wide variety of attractions, the tourist arrivals increased in the last quarter of the year. According to Dubai Tourism’s figures, India retained its top ranking with visitor numbers reaching 1.478 million, an increase of 20 per cent. Retaining its 5th position, visitors from China recorded one of the highest growth of 49 per cent to 573,000 during the first 9 months of this year. The growth in Chinese tourist arrivals was attributed to granting free visa-on-arrival facility.
Saudi Arabia and the UK also retained their positions as Dubai’s second and third largest feeder markets, respectively. A total of 1,250,000 Saudi ( a slight drop when compared with previous year’s ratings) and 905,000 British travelers visited the emirates.
Despite the continued Brexit instability, UK maintained its 2% year-on-year increase. Although Oman and Kuwait saw declines of 23% and 3% respectively.
“The recent addition of 17 new leisure attractions, strong year-round calendar of events, global connectivity, expansion of low-cost carriers and development of mid-market hotels, are right steps in the direction to grow both new and repeat visitors. The more the destination creates attractions and tailors its products to cater to diverse tourists, the better conversion it can expect. There is need to build on experiential travel,” he said. “We are focused on continuously innovating, harnessing the power of data, redefining the customer journey and amplifying the voice of the traveller, to ensure that Dubai is a decade ahead of any other global city from a travel and tourism perspective,” said Helal Saeed Almarri, director-general, Dubai Tourism.
He pointed out that the aim is not just to achieve higher repeat traffic but also bring in newer audiences as the emirate strives towards 20 million target by 2020.
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