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Dubai Hotel Guests Up 5pc in First Half

DUBAI — Dubai hotels continue to rack up decent sales despite the global economic slump, with the number of hotel guests in the first half of the year rising by 5 per cent from a year earlier, said the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, or DTCM.

DTCM said that from January to June, hotel and hotel apartments in Dubai recorded 3.85 million guests. The uptrend continued in August with five-star beach hotels enjoying an average occupancy rate of 90 per cent. In July, the total number of guests coming from the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation council who stayed in five, four and three star hotels in Dubai was 64,102, this is 35 per cent higher compared with the same period last year.

“The performance of our ambitious and globally-competitive hospitality industry, and the growth trends witnessed in various segments have helped Dubai maintain its solid standing on the world tourism map in one of the most-challenging business environments that the global tourism industry is grappling with,” said Khalid A bin Sulayem, director general of DTCM.

DTCM’s statement sought to debunk grim tourism forecasts recently released by Business Monitor International (BMI) which said that the number of tourists to the UAE may decline this year, owing to the slowdown in US and key European economies. These two markets, said BMI, accounted for an estimated 40 per cent of total arrivals to the UAE in 2007.

The BMI report also said Dubai hotels had suffered a 16 per cent drop in occupancy rates during the first four months of 2009, compared to the same period in 2008.

In Abu Dhabi, BMI said hotels recorded a fall in occupancy rates of almost 7 per cent between January and April this year.

Sulayem attributed the sustained rise in Dubai’s tourism trade to the government’s aggressive promotional and marketing drive.

“DTCM’s promotions and marketing initiatives, taken up in cooperation with the hoteliers and tourism industry professionals, contributed enormously in achieving the high growth and keeping the tourism economy robust.”

Sulayem is bullish about tourism in Dubai, saying the emirate is still gaining ground as a year-round business and leisure destination.

Dubai which has projected itself as a global tourism and financial hub, currently has a total of 40,943 hotel rooms and 17204 hotel apartment flats, a 17 per cent increase over the first half of last year.

In a bid to drum up tourism in the emirate amid the global slowdown that saw huge drops worldwide in business and leisure travelers since late last year, the DTCM earlier this year, spearheaded the three-month ‘Keep Discovering Dubai’ familiarisation programme for about 2000 tour operators, travel agents and media representatives from about 60 countries.

For the summer, the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing launched the ‘Kids Go Free’ promotion from July 1 to September 20 to boost the number of visitors to the emirate. — rocel@khaleejtimes.com,