Dubai has once again set a new record in the number of overnight visitors. It is no secret that Dubai hotels and the emirate in whole are a popular tourist destination, and the latest statistics only prove that. In H1 2019, Dubai welcomed as many as 8.36 million international overnight visitors. This is 3% more than a year ago.
Posted by the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing of Dubai (Dubai Tourism), this metric once again underlines that the emirate’s hospitality system is a crucial contributor to the GDP. This is also one more step closer to Dubai’s long-term dream of becoming the most visited destination in the world. Dubai Tourism called the record “particularly encouraging” and once again mentioned how important it is to maintain and enhance different aspects of the infrastructure, from hotels to efficient delivery of guests.
India remains the biggest source market for Dubai as many as 997,000 guests visited the emirate during H1 2019. Improved delivery and advertising campaigns across Tier-1 and Trie-2 cities of India helped Dubai to boost the number of incoming guests. Dubai made several advertising campaigns in India, promoting both couple and family vacations. Even such Bollywood megastar as Shah Rukh Khan participated in promotional activities, reaching 160 million views within just several weeks. The number of family tours to Dubai from India added significant 10% in January June 2019, expanding the share of this category of tourists from 24 to 34%.
The second-largest source market for Dubai is also the same the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Visitors from this country feature a 2% increase in H1 2019 to 755,000 people. Dubai hotels were particularly full of guests from this country on the Eid break when the number of KSA tourists was 4.9% higher than a year ago. Dubai is a particularly attractive destination for families and millennials from Saudi Arabia.
Tourists from the UK were the third-largest group despite devaluated British Pound and economic uncertainty regarding Brexit. Contrary to visitors from other countries, Dubai is mostly popular with British couples. They account for 56% of all guests from the United Kingdom while the share of family tourists is only 20%. 586,000 guests from the UK visited Dubai in H1 2019, and this is not much more than the number of guests from another important source country China and its 501,000 guests.