DRMumbai: Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) hosted a Roadshow in India as part of its strategy to further boost the number of visitors to Dubai from India. The four-city event was spread over five days from July 30 to August 3, 2018 in Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad, serving as an exclusive platform for delegates to interact with over 900 Indian retail partners that included tour operators, travel agents, cruise specialists, wedding planners and MICE organisers.
Tourism continues to be the central pillar of Dubai’s economic growth and diversification, and the Tourism Vision for 2020 will further leverage the sector by broadening Dubai’s tourism offering across events, attractions, infrastructure, services and packages. To achieve the goal, an evolved marketing approach is in place to showcase Dubai to a wider audience and increase the conversion of destination awareness to flight and hotel bookings.
The 22-member Dubai delegation comprised of airline, hotels, resorts, cruises, attractions and destination management companies. Some of the participants at the roadshow included Emirates Airlines, Atlantis, Jumeriah Group, Dubai Parks and Resorts, IMG Theme Park, La Perle, Burj Khalifa, Royal Gulf Tourism, MSC Cruises and Costa Cruises.
The program for the workshops included presentations by officials of Emirates Airlines, Costa Cruises, Expo 2020 and DTCM in addition to detailed networking sessions between the Dubai delegation and leaders of the Indian travel trade community.
Dubai is targeting 20 million visitors from around the world by 2020 and is heavily banking on tourists from India, which is currently the country’s number one source market contributing 13 per cent of its total share.Dubai is expecting huge turnout from India during the Asia Cup cricket tournament in September and during the AFC Asian Cup football tournament in which India is participating.
On the sidelines of the India Roadshow, Khalid M Alawar, Manager – India & Pakistan, International Operations, DTCM spoke to the travel media.
“Family travel is top most focus segment for us. All new attractions coming up in Dubai are targeted towards families. Dubai Parks and Resorts and IMG Worlds of Adventure are aimed at families. In July,UAE announced visa fee waiver for children under 18 travelling with their families. It shows our commitment towards family travel”.
Dubai has become a year-round destination for Indians. “Dubai is one of the safest destinations in the world. Especially for families and women travelers, this is very important”.
India is the first market to cross the two million visitor mark. “Repeat visitation is high from India and very important for Dubai. So we are focusing on giving them reasons to visit again.New visa regulations introduced in June 2017 – 48-hour free transit visa on arrival – has made the emirate even more accessible for Indians.There has been a 3 per cent growth in Indians visiting Dubai in H1, 2018 and equally distributed across segments – MICE, families, first timers, repeat visitors.
Dubai welcomed 8.1 million visitors globally in H1, 2018 which is a mere 0.5 per cent growth YoY. India, Saudi Arabia, UK, China and Russia were the top five source markets for the emirate. Dubai received one million-plus tourists from India with a growth of three per cent during H1, 2018 while Russia was the fastest growing market at 74 per cent increase in tourist arrivals, reaching 4,05,000 visitors. Similarly, Chinese visitors totalled 4, 53,000, an increase of nine per cent. Saudi Arabia maintained its status as the largest feeder market from the GCC in H1, 2018.According to Dubai Tourism, the first half of 2018 also witnessed increased contributions from the US and Germany, standing strong at seventh and eighth positions with 3, 27,000 and 3, 02,000 visitors, respectively.
“There has been a slowdown when compared to same time last year when we grew 10.8 per cent. Global economicslump is certainly impacting us” accepts Alawar. “We are exploring new markets and frontier markets to counter the slowdown. India is growing and we are very happy about that. We have excellent air connectivity with India. Tier II cities like Ahmedabad and Pune are showing immense potential apart from the metros. Our new representative in India the Nijhawan Group has well established network in India and we are confident about what they can do for us.”
Dubai is one of the fastest evolving destinations with new attractions, events and experiences being created. So, no two visits are alike for a traveller. With outbound travel growing aggressively in India, the challenge is to educate the trade and visitors about what is new in Dubai. DTCM has re-launched the Dubai Experts training program early this year. Designed by Dubai College of Tourism the online program can be accessed at www.dubaiexperts.com and is gamified to engage, educate and reward.
Shrugging off any concerns about VAT, tourists continued to flock to Dubai in the first-half of 2018 as the region’s most-visited city reached 8.1 million visitors and is on track to surpass its last year’s figures of 15.79 million.The introduction of VAT on the hospitality sector has not impacted business. VAT in the UAE is at one of the lowest rates in the world, so its overall impact has been quite negligible. Moreover, the government is pumping back tax funds into development projects, which will boost a number of industries including tourism in the country.The decision to implement a VAT refund mechanism for tourists will also ensure the industry’s competitiveness globally and drive further growth in its GDP contribution to Dubai.
With the similar growth trend in visitor numbers during second half, Dubai is expected to become the third most-visited city in the world by surpassing Paris this year. It was the fourth most-visited city last year after Bangkok, London and Paris.Figures released by Dubai’s DTCM recently showed that the growth was driven by the traditional markets due to visa on arrival incentives as well as multimedia campaigns by Dubai in different markets.
At the end of H1, 2018, Dubai had 700 hotel properties with 1, 11,317 keys, an increase of seven per cent compared to the same time last year. With an increase in demand for mid-market hotels in Dubai, the number of four star properties has increased from 114 to 138, representing 25 per cent of the rooms inventory. The Dubai Government has been focusing on developing mid range hotel segment for some time. “We now have Zabeel House from Jumeirah and Rove from Emaar adding mid range segment rooms in key areas of the city,” informed Alawar. Occupied room nights were also up YoY with a total of 14.97 million.compared to 14.53 million during the same period in 2017.The total size of Dubai’s tourism sector was Dh109 billion at the end of last year.
