Nearly 1 mn Indians visit Dubai in 1st half of 2019

Nearly 1 million Indians visited Dubai during the first six months (January-June) of 2019, becoming the highest international overnight visitors to the emirate, the latest data has revealed. The data released by the Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing said that Dubai welcomed 8.36 million international overnight visitors from January to June of 2019, posting a three percent rise in the tourism volume growth compared to the same period last year.

India once again led the pack, drawing the highest half-year volumes with 997,000 visitors – particularly noteworthy given the severe air traffic and seat capacity challenges due to geopolitical volatilities. "Dubai continued to drive booking interest from Indians on a mass scale largely due to high-impact delivery of segment and season-specific campaigns across the most accessible Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities," a statement by the DTCM said.

"From focused 'family' or 'couple' oriented promotions to the Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan-led global #BeMyGuest campaign, the Department's investments yielded strong returns, with the latter alone surpassing all records, logging 160 million views in a short few weeks," it said. Additionally, travel share of Indian families with children rose by a substantial 10 percentage points from 24 to 34 percent, directly reflecting higher GDP impact due to party size and spending potential.

Coming in strong as Dubai's second-largest feeder market once again, Saudi Arabia delivered 755,000 visitors at two percent year-on-year growth over six months with 4.9 percent increase over the Eid break alone – signifying continued stability in Dubai's attractiveness for Saudi families and millennials, the data revealed.