More than 5.5 million tourists visited Dubai in the first half of 2013, representing an 11.1 percent year-on-year increase.
The first half visitor number results, released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) on Wednesday, show increases across all key indicators, including hotel establishment guests, hotel and hotel apartment revenues, room occupancy and average length of stay.
Revenues for hoteliers and hotel apartment operators saw significant growth – with total first half revenues reaching AED11.62bn ($3.18bn) up by 18.6 percent.
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The occupancy rate in the city also saw steady growth during the first half of the year.
Hotel room occupancy averaged 84.6 percent over the six month period, up 2.8 percent from 81.8 percent in the first half of 2012, while the occupancy rate for hotel apartments was 85.8 percent, up 6.5 percent from 79.3 percent in H1 2012.
This increase in occupancy gains greater significance when viewed against a backdrop of the increased availability of hotel rooms – 16 new hotel establishments have opened since June 2012, bringing the number of establishments to 603 and adding 5,484 rooms to the Emirate’s offer, which now totals 81,492.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai earlier this year announced a strategy to double annual visitor numbers to 20 million in 2020.
Helal Saeed Almarri, director-general of DTCM, said: “The figures for the first half of 2013 are extremely encouraging and indicate that we are on the way to achieving our Tourism Vision for 2020.
"Our strategy is to position Dubai as a foremost destination for both leisure and business travellers by continuously evolving our broad and diverse tourism offering, and attracting visitors from a range of source markets, including targeting a new generation of first-time travellers from emerging markets.
"The increase in visitors from each of our key source markets is particularly encouraging, with a number of these markets showing particularly strong growth, including the GCC countries, China, India, Australia and many countries in Europe.”
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