Middle East World winners
Not only are the United Arab Emirates breaking their own records this year, they’re topping global charts and giving each other a run for their money, says Rob Gill
T
ravelling to the United Arab Emirates used to be mainly about going to Dubai, then near neighbour Abu Dhabi started to become more of a serious player.
Move on a few years, and now it’s other emirates such as Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Sharjah and Fujairah that are making more of a splash in the global tourism market as they expand their offerings to visitors in a bid to reach their own ambitious growth targets over the next few years.
Dubai developments Having said this, Dubai (ME300) is still by far the leading destination in the UAE – with 8.1 million visitors arriving in the emirate during the first half of 2018, which was a small rise of 0.5% on the same period last year.
Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), also known as Dubai Tourism, says the destination remains on course to hit its target of reaching 20 million annual visitors by 2020 – the emirate welcomed 15.8 million international visitors in 2017.
Helal Saeed Almarri, DTCM director general, says: “Attracting 8.1 million visitors during the first half of 2018 stands us in good stead as we accelerate momentum towards our visionary aspiration of becoming the most visited city in the world.” Dubai is also benefiting the most from the UAE’s continued policy of relaxing entry restrictions for visitors – the UAE has allowed Chinese and Russian nationals to receive visas on entry for the past two years. This helped lead to a 9% increase in arrivals to Dubai from China (up to 453,000) for the first half of 2018,
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while Russian visitors rose by a whopping 74% to 405,000 for the same period.
A more recent move has seen all passengers using the UAE’s airports being given an exemption from entry fees for a 48-hour stay, which is designed to boost the number of stopover visitors. For those wanting a longer stay, this can be extended to 96 hours for $14. Children are also now exempt from visa fees in the UAE’s summer months. To further encourage transit passengers to make a stopover in Dubai, the tourist office has launched MyDubai Experience at the emirate’s international airport. This innovation features a series of interactive screens allowing tourists to put together a personalised two-day itinerary in Dubai based on their interests.
Abu Dhabi accelerates While it’s hard to see any of the other emirates taking too much of the focus away from Dubai in the coming years, Abu Dhabi (ME200) is certainly giving its neighbour a run
Abu Dhabi has put itself on the global tourism map with attractions such as Ferrari World
Air access
Another key to the UAE’s success has been the abundant – and relatively cheap by global standards – air access, and this growth is also continuing. By the end of 2018, Dubai International is expected to reach the one billion passenger milestone since the airport opened in 1960. During the fi rst seven months of the year, the airport handled 51.9 million passengers – up by 1.6% on the same period in 2017. The world’s busiest international airport expects to cater for a total of 90.3 million people this year – the top three international markets
for traffi c are India, Saudi Arabia and the UK.
This growth is primarily driven by Emirates’ continued expansion of services and capacity – new routes include Stansted and Edinburgh in the UK, and Santiago in Chile, plus an extra fl ight between Dubai and Auckland via Bali.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi
International continues to undergo a multi-billion dollar redevelopment and expansion to increase the overall capacity of the airport by 30 million passengers per year. The project is currently expected to be completed in late 2019.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi houses Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi
New cultural landmark the Dubai Frame
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