15m tourists predicted to visit to Dubai in 2015

Thursday, 14 March 2013 00:53 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Dubai has become one of the top 10 tourism destinations in the world and can expect to attract more than 15 million tourists from around the globe by 2015, according to Genesis Consulting ME, a dubai based business planning and marketing services provider.

While Dubai is attracting demand from a wide range of segments including corporate and MICE travellers, it is the leisure market that remains the leading sector, contributing over 40% of total room occupancy in Dubai’s hotels, claims Genesis Consulting ME.

Genesis Consulting ME managing director Bharat Kumar said: “The travel and tourism industry has established itself as a key important pillar for the economic growth within the UAE and Dubai in particular. It is the magnet to attract leisure, business and shopping visitors and is the ideal link between the West and East. In terms of marketing and PR services, we will carry on focusing on promoting the growth of the travel and tourism industry and helping to make Dubai the premier visitor destination.”

The company’s report goes on to claim that the emirate’s hotel industry recorded an occupancy rate of 80% in 2012, with an average daily rate of AED 1,030.54 (US $280.58) which was 0.9 percentage point and 8.4 per cent higher respectively than the same period during 2011. Moreover, reports from Ernst & Young and TRI Hospitality Consulting highlighted that Dubai hotels were steady for the first seven months of last year when compared with the same period in 2011 while hotels in Dubai recorded a 10.3 per cent increase in revenue.

According to a latest report released hospitality consultants STR Global, Dubai’s hotel room capacity will grow 28.6% in 2013 with 17,409 rooms currently in the pipeline. Additionally, Alpen Capital in its recent report on the region predicted that hotel room supply from 2012-2016 will increase by 5.3% annually in the entire United Arab Emirates (UAE) taking the number from the current 96,992 hotels to 125,383 in 2016.

In addition, medical tourism has also become a growing market in Dubai with health tourism in the UAE growing at 15 per cent annually and over 502,000 patients recorded in 2011 of which 15 per cent were medical tourists compared to 10 per cent of a total of 412,000 patients in 2010. It estimates that medical tourism in the Emirate will have generated AED 6.1 billion ($1.6 billion) by the end of 2012.