Dubai visitor numbers soar in 2015

Dubai received more than 8.2 million international overnight visitors during the first seven months of 2015, representing a 9.3 percent increase on the same period in 2014, according to the emirate’s Department for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM).

Top source markets for business included India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Iran and China, the DTCM’s chief executive, Issam Kazim, revealed.

To accommodate the growth in tourism numbers to the city, 11 new hotels opened between January and July, adding 2,600 rooms to the destination’s inventory. This took the total number of hotel and hotel apartment rooms to some 95,000.

Kazim said Dubai’s inventory boom was proportionate to current and future tourism needs, with the number of international visitors to the emirate targeted to reach 20 million by 2020, which is double the 10 million the destination received in 2010.

The DTCM’s statistics for tourism and hotel market performance post-July have yet to be revealed, however, September’s Eid Al Adha holiday period attracted a high volume of visitors to Dubai, according to the emirate’s General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA).

More than 670,000 people travelled to and from Dubai during the five-day religious festival (September 22 and 26), said the government department.

Of those, more than 351,400 were visiting Dubai, arriving through its air, sea and land ports. Around 319,453 residents left the emirate during the same period.