Dubai witnessed a surge in arrivals which accelerated the city’s tourism momentum with 12.08 million international overnight visitors in the first nine months of 2019, according to the latest visitation figures released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.
In September alone, Dubai welcomed over 1.23 million visitors, an above market average increase of 7.3 percent over the same month in 2018.
Dubai ranked the fourth most visited city in the world for the fifth year in a row in Mastercard’s Global Destination Cities Index 2019.
Dubai Tourism’s multi-dimensional market-specific strategies, and customized campaigns continued to yield tangible results to attract more visitors namely from: India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Oman.
Together with China, Dubai remains the world’s largest tourism volume driver, surpassing the five million threshold for the first nine months of 2019.
India retained its position as Dubai’s leading source market, with over 1.39 million visitors during the first nine months of 2019,
Of the GCC countries, Saudi Arabia solidified its position as the highest traffic volume generator, registering a two percent year-on-year growth for over 1.25 million visitors
Despite the devaluation of the pound against the dollar, and Brexit uncertainty, the UK remained Dubai’s third largest source market with 851,000 visitors.
Oman stayed the course as one of the key drivers within the top performing markets, delivering 778,000 visitors for a 28 percent increase year-on-year, making it the fourth highest traffic generator.
Dubai continues to attract large numbers of Chinese tourists, as Beijing takes the fifth spot with an impressive 14 percent increase in the first nine months of 2019.
The United States, which saw a one percent increase, and Russia, maintained their sixth and seventh positions with 481,000 and 433,000 visitors respectively.
Within the top 10 source markets, Germany and Pakistan also retained their eighth and ninth positions with 392,000 and 378,000 visitors respectively while Philippines, one of the fastest-growing feeder markets, staged an impressive comeback to the top 10 with a 29 percent increase delivering 352,000 visitors.
