São Paulo – The emirate of Dubai welcomed 4.75 million tourists from January to March this year, up 2% from a year ago, the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) reported this Monday (6).
India remained the biggest source market at 564,836 travelers, followed by Saudi Arabia at 411.586 and the United Kingdom at 326,586 travelers. The number of Chinese tourists in Dubai was up 13% to 291,662.
Oman remained the fifth biggest source of tourists to Dubai. It saw the sharpest hike at 27% to 263,182 travelers. Dubai remained an attractive destination for Russians as well, at 234,142 visitors. Germany, the United States, Pakistan and France were the other countries in Dubai’s top-10 sources list.
Dubai Tourism director Helal Saeed Almarri was quoted as saying “Tourism as a sector continues to be one of the most interconnected, and consequently highly diversified pillars of Dubai’s GDP, making our economic contribution imperative for collective growth .”
New destinations became available in Dubai during Q1, including Bluewaters Island, Al Shindagha Museum, The Pointe mall at Palm Jumeirah and the ‘Al Marmoom Bedouin Experience’ tourism project, and the Al Marmoom Bedouin Experience – a nature reserve set within the Dubai desert, boasting artificial lakes and a gamut of fauna and flora.
Average hotel occupancy was 84%, down from 87% in Q1 2018. New hotels opened in the city, including W Dubai – The Palm and Mandarin Oriental Jumeirah.
Hotel room nights amounted to 8.63 million, up from 8.27 million in Q1 2018. The average stay was 3.5 nights. The average rate was down 11% from AED 562 in Q1 2018 to AED 498 in A1 2019, with revenue per available room sliding by 14.5% to AED 417.
By the end of March 2019 there were 118,039 rooms available in Dubai’s 717 establishments, up 8% from a year ago. Five-star hotels amounted to 34% of total availability, with four-star ones accounting for 26% of supply. One- to three-star places made up 19% of rooms available, and 21% of rooms were luxury, superior and standard hotel apartments.
“The continued success of Dubai as a global tourism magnet relies on collaborative delivery between government and private sector, and the enablement of equitable scale-agnostic participation of players across the entire tourism ecosystem,” said Almarri.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
