A record total of 8.06 million international overnight tourists arrived in Dubai during the first six months of 2017, a 10.6 per cent increase over the same period last year.
That was according to figures released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism).
His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, director general, Dubai Tourism, commented: “We are extremely pleased that Dubai has sustained the momentum of growth we achieved in the first quarter to deliver a strong double-digit performance through H1 2017, setting the stage for continued acceleration in tourism volumes and GDP contribution this year.
“Our strategic investments, innovative destination promotion programmes, responsive federal policy reforms, and long-term global partnerships are evidently paying dividends as we ramp up efforts to increase Dubai’s accessibility, visibility and overall appeal, minimise barriers to travel, and ultimately drive both first-time and repeat visitation.”
From a regional perspective, Western Europe contributed 21 per cent of the overnight visitor volumes, maintaining its pole position from earlier in the year, reflective of Dubai Tourism’s strong international destination marketing efforts aimed at driving consideration from a wider spectrum of European market segments. Dubai sustained its appeal among traditional stronghold markets across the GCC that collectively accounted for 19 per cent of traffic during H1 2017, driven by efforts to continually revive the city’s offerings encouraging frequency of regular repeat travel.
North and South-East Asia as well as the Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe bloc both saw two per cent gains over their 2016 year-end contributions to end H1 2017 with 11 and seven % shares respectively. This performance is attributable to a series of sustained cross-industry activities to raise general market awareness and tangibly grow visitation via structured trade partnerships from these high-potential markets.
His Excellency added: “Alongside the continuous expansion and enhancement of Dubai’s infrastructure and tourism proposition, and backed by the strength of our industry stakeholders across government and private sectors, our goal now is to ensure that the city builds on this positive trajectory through not just the remainder of 2017 but also further, to get us closer to our Tourism Vision 2020 target of 20 million annual tourist arrivals.”
