Dubai welcomes 4.1 million visitors in Q1 of 2016
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Recent statistics revealed by Dubai Tourism state that the emirate welcomed 4.1 million overnight visitors in the first three months of 2016.
This resulted in a 5.1% increase over 2015, backed by strong double digit growth from its top two proximity markets – the GCC and India. The figures were released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism).
The GCC continued to be a leading feeder region, delivering 25% of all overnight visitation to Dubai in the first quarter. Visitors from Saudi Arabia grew 14% to 476,000 from January to March in 2016, making it the number one source country, followed by strong growth from Oman, which increased by 32% over the same period in 2015 with 322,000 visitors. Kuwait, which remained in the top 10 with119,000 visitors, and Qatar, which saw 26% spike in visitor volumes, rounded off the high performing regional traffic with strong contributions.
The Subcontinent also remained a key driver of tourism volumes with India growing at 17% in the opening quarter to deliver 467,000 overnight visitors, making it the second largest feeder country, followed by Pakistan within the region, which swelled by 18% over the same period.
Despite challenging global market conditions, and a strong US Dollar, visitors from Western Europe continued to be second largest source region with a 23% visitor share overall in the opening quarter of 2016. This was led by 10% year-on-year quarter growth from United Kingdom, which remained Dubai’s third largest country contributor with 334,000 visitors. Rounding off the top five was Germany which brought in 171,000 visitors. France, with 76,000 visitors, remained flat over Q1 2015, whilst Italy grew 5%, representing 69,000 visitors.
HE Helal Saeed Almarri, director general, Dubai Tourism, said: “Global travel in the first three months of this year has been impacted by geo-political, social and economic uncertainties, with most markets experiencing flat to negative growth. Markets within the four hour flight path, specifically the GCC and India, remain a critical focus for our on-going visitation attraction efforts as build towards our growth targets.”
Other key countries in Dubai’s top 10 source markets for the first quarter included the USA, which delivered 166,000 visitors; China, which was up by four percent and Iran, which was the only market to see a decline. Rounding out the top 20, the Philippines saw 25% quarterly growth over the same period in 2015, Canadian visitors increased by nine percent, countering declines across Egypt, Russia, Jordan, Australia and the Netherlands.
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