Dubai’s hotels register 5.8m tourists for H1
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The first six months of the 2014 has turned out to be productive for Dubai. The emirate welcomed more than 5.8 million tourists in the first half (H1) of 2014. These current statistics were recently released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM).
His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, director-general of DTCM said: “Our strategy continues to be positioning Dubai as a must-experience family destination. The figures for the first half of 2014 are encouraging and we will continue to build on this growth. The figures show an increase in visitors from many of our key source markets – for example we are seeing strong growth from China, Brazil, Australia and many countries in Europe. The increase comes despite the reduction in flights due to the refurbishment and upgrading of the runways at Dubai International.”
In the first half of 2014, guest numbers across all hotel establishments (hotels and hotel apartments) reached 5,828,449, an increase on 2013. Dubai’s top 10 tourism source markets remained for the most part unchanged compared to the previous year. The top 10 markets showed some slight changes in positioning and continue to show the diversity of visitors travelling to Dubai. Saudi Arabia, India, UK, USA, Russia, China, Iran, Oman, Kuwait and Germany made up the top ten for January to June 2014.
Saudi Arabia continued to be Dubai’s primary source market and guests from China (ranked 6th) and India (ranked 2nd), continued to show growth. China in particular saw an increase of 26%, attributable both to increasing propensity of Chinese residents to travel overseas and targeted campaigns of DTCM and its partners.
Hotels and hotel apartments saw steady growth in guest nights during the first half of the year with figures up by 6.7% for hotels and 4.1% for hotel apartments. Increasing length of stay has been identified as a key driver of tourism growth across Dubai within the Tourism Vision for 2020, and average length of stay increased across the board, with an average of 3.9 days – length of stay in hotels increased to 3.4 days and hotel apartments to 5.7 days.
Revenues for hoteliers and hotel apartment operators saw significant growth – with total first half revenues reaching AED12.74billion (US$3.18bn) up by 10.9%. Hotels and hotel apartments reported increases in room revenue (15.3%) as well as F&B & other revenue, which rose by 3.8%.
His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri further added: “In addition to increase in hotel guest numbers, since the end of June 2013, Dubai has added more than 7000 hotel rooms to its inventory, with the total now standing at 88,680 across 634 establishments. Dubai’s hotel offering is continuing to grow and diversify allowing us to both meet the demand from travellers as well as broaden the market.”
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