Dubai in top 10 for international tourist arrivals
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Approximately eight million international tourists will visit Dubai in 2011, ranking the emirate at number nine of 132 cities across the world for visitor arrivals according to a new report released by MasterCard.The global payment giant’s new index of Global Destination Cities predicts Dubai will receive 7.9m inbound passengers this year, ahead of other global tourist hotspots including New York (7.6m), Amsterdam (7.4m) and Kuala Lumpur (6.9m).In the Middle East and Africa, Dubai ranks first among 21 cities from the region, and is the only destination city from the region that is in the world’s top 20 by visitor arrivals. Regionally, Dubai is followed by Cairo (3.7m arrivals) and Johannesburg (3m), in second and third place, respectively.The report predicts Dubai’s visitor arrivals would grow by 17.3 per cent this year – sixth best growth rate among the global Top 20 – and that visitors would collectively spend $7.8 billion in the emirate.The MasterCard report lists London as the most important city of origin for the emirate both by visitor arrivals and visitor expenditures. In 2011, the report estimates that close to a million visitors (926,000) will land in Dubai from London, and spend $876m in the emirate.Overall, visitor expenditure in the emirate is expected to increase by almost a quarter (24 per cent) this year, ranking Dubai third in terms of growth rates of visitor expenditure among the top 20 destination cities, behind Istanbul (30.1 per cent growth in visitor expenditure) and Barcelona (28.2 per cent), and ahead of key Asian destination cities of Singapore and Hong Kong, which are expected to grow by 23.9 and 23.6 per cent, respectively.Overall, European cities dominate the global rankings with 10 out of the top 20 destinations, and with London (20.1m visitors) and Paris (18.1m) in first and second position, respectively. Asia-Pacific follows next in terms of the Top 20 domination, with Bangkok (11.5m), Singapore (11.4m) and Hong Kong (10.9m) rounding up the Top 5 globally. In fact, cities in Asia-Pacific account for eight of the top 20 global destinations.
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