Having retained its crown of being the most visited city in the Middle East, Dubai is now world’s sixth in its latest ranking of tourist destinations.
Euromonitor International unveiled the Top 100 city destinations ranking for 2017, and the report shows that an increased number of visitors are visiting Dubai now, than several other places on earth.
Dubai has moved one place up and is now in sixth position, surpassing tourist hotspots like New York, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo. Moreover, it is the only city in the Middle East to have been listed in the top ten category, and is expected to draw in more than 26 million visitors by the year 2025, surpassing London, which is now in the third place.
Overall, Hong Kong is the most visited city in the world for the eighth successive year, followed by Bangkok.
The Euromonitor’s data reveals that the number of visitors entering Dubai has spiked by 11.2 percent from 14.9million last year to more than 16.5 million this year, making it a more popular destination of choice for travellers, in comparison to majority of other cities across the globe.
Dubai is insulated against the turmoil that is going around it, with the tourism sector of the city booming, said Euromonitor.
The increase in popularity of Dubai is largely due to the integrated approach by all industry players under the 2020 vision.
This year, Dubai is the most sought-after destination whether it is for business travellers, or for meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions etc., due to its state-of-the-art infrastructure and premium lodging landscape.
The Senior Research Manager at Euromonitor, Nikola Kosutic, said that Dubai’s focus on developing world-class theme parks across adventure and entertainment, in the likes of Legoland and Motiongate, are increasing demand in the family holiday segment.
Although the dominance of four and five star lodging discourages potential tourists from developing countries, expansion in mid-market options and Airbnb helps bridge the gap in sourcing more tourists, she pointed out.
Further, Dubai is the largest and fastest-growing destination in the Middle East and Africa. Recently, Dubai bagged several awards during the World Travel Awards, which seeks to honour excellence in the tourism sector. Dubai was named Middle East’s lead destination of the year, while several landmarks including Burj Khalifa and Bur Al Arab were declared region’s leading tourist attraction and leading all-suite hotel respectively for the year 2017.
