Dubai poised to rise in rankings of world’s most-visited city

Business Bureau, Gulf Today

The Arabian Travel Market, the region’s leading international travel and tourism event is all set to raise its curtains on Sunday, bringing together over 2,800 exhibitors from across the world. The event promises to further raise Dubai’s profile as an industry hub by showcasing new developments, destinations, offers and technologies and providing a platform for companies to network and do business.

Dubai’s own offerings in the travel and tourism sector will be one of the cynosures of attention at the event to be held from 28 April to 1 May. In 2018, Dubai overcame the impact of global economic headwinds, to emerge as a growth hotspot in the worldwide tourism map. According to a report by the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, the emirate welcomed 15.92 million visitors in 2018, an increase of 0.8 per cent from a year earlier. Dubai was ranked the world’s fourth most visited city for the fourth year in a row by the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index (GDCI) 2018 and topped the list of global cities with the highest international overnight visitor spend for the third year in a row.

Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), said: “Our presence at Arabian Travel Market forms a core part of our efforts to raise awareness of Dubai as a diverse travel destination to global audiences, and we are pleased to extend our support once again to the 26th edition of this influential event. We remain focused on strengthening collaborations with our network of industry partners, in turn underlining the enormous diversity that the emirate offers global travellers.”

“Keeping in mind this year’s theme of innovation and technology, Dubai as a destination has already embraced a ‘digital, mobile and social first’ agenda that places future readiness at its core while promoting the adoption of disruptive technology. As a global hub of innovation, we will continue to support public-private sector partnerships to evolve our product offering and the way we engage with today’s digitally-savvy consumers. Keeping ahead of the global competition, we are anchored by an unwavering vision of establishing Dubai as the number one most-visited and innovative city in the world,» he added.

Dubai’s ability to sustain its tourism growth over the past few years has been driven, among others, by a sustained investment in infrastructure. In the next half a decade, it is set to complete the construction of a series of mega projects that will features some of the world’s most spectacular tourist attractions.

Bluewaters Island, a new tourism project adjacent to Dubai Marina, will be home to a number of residential and commercial projects such as penthouses, shopping malls and beach clubs. The centerpiece of Bluewaters Island is Ain Dubai, the largest Ferris wheel in the world. Another major coastal tourist attraction being built in Dubai is Marsa Arab that encompasses two man-made islands. The development will add 2.2 km of beach frontage to Dubai’s coastline, with one of the islands dedicated to entertainment and family tourism.

Dubai is also building the Deira Islands Night Souk, billed as the largest night market in the world. The venue forms part of the Dhs6.1 billion Deira Island, a 15.3 sq kilometre waterfront city that features four islands. Another new project, the Dubai Creek Harbour, will be home to the city’s tallest building, the $1 billion Santiago Calatrava-designed Dubai Tower. The 6 million sq metre Dubai Creek Harbour will be twice the size of Downtown Dubai when it is fully completed in 2025.

Dubai’s strong connectivity and transportation infrastructure has been another major driver in its tourism surge. Last year, Dubai International (DXB) retained its position as the world’s busiest airport with the number of travellers passing through its terminals growing to nearly 90 million. Dubai International has been crowned as the world›s busiest hub for international travel for a few years now since outranking London Heathrow in 2014. Meanwhile, Emirates, Dubai’s flagship airline, carried over 59 million passengers on about 3,700 passenger flights on average per week in 2018. At a time when the global aviation industry is experiencing a slowdown, Emirates operated over 192,000 flights, with its fleet of 274 aircraft in 2018 to its global network of 157 destinations.

Never used to sitting on its laurels, Dubai is seeking to build on the substantial growth it has seen in the past decade by setting an ambitious target of welcoming 25 million visitors by the year 2025. The target, part of the Dubai Tourism Strategy launched last year, aims to strengthen Dubai’s position as one of the most visited cities in the world. Designed to provide a strong impetus to its global competitiveness, the Strategy is focused on ensuring that Dubai is not impacted by fundamental changes in the future. The emirate has already rolled out plans to boost its growth in major tourist exporting markets and diversify sources from high-potential markets.

Tourist inflows to Dubai already boast a diverse global spread. Last year, Western Europe emerged as the largest contributor of overnight visitor volumes for 2018, commanding a 21 per cent share, to maintain its pole position from 2017. This was closely followed by the GCC and South Asia, contributing 18 and 17 per cent of all international visitation to the city respectively.