Dubai: The number of Chinese overnight visitors in Dubai grew by 25 per cent in the first six months of this year, but their spending has dropped, according to a top tourism official.
There were 241,000 Chinese visitors in Dubai in the first half of this year, said Issam Kazim, chief executive of the Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), during a press conference in Dubai on Wednesday.
“We are seeing year-on-year growth from China,” he said.
China was one of Dubai’s top 10 tourism source markets in 2014, having ranked seventh, followed by Kuwait, Russia and Germany.
The number of Chinese visitors was also expected to have grown by 25 per cent last year, Kazim said last January.
DCTCM did not say how much Chinese visitors spent in the emirate in the first half of the current year and did not forecast visitor numbers for the second half of this year.
The economic slowdown and the recent devaluation of the yuan by 3.5 per cent against the US dollar have crimped spending of Chinese tourists in Dubai.
Nikola Kosutic, research manager at Euromonitor International, said the expenditure by Chinese tourists in Dubai declined by 7 per cent in the first half of this year due to the economic conditions in China.
“The continuation of economic woes coupled with unpredictable events like the devaluation of the yuan will bring the decline in expenditure by Chinese tourists in Dubai to 15-20 per cent in the second half of this year,” he said.
He anticipates expenditure to drop by around 11 per cent in 2015 compared to 2014.
Gulf News reported on Tuesday that spending by Chinese in luxury retail stores and other non-retail businesses, such as car rental companies, has recently dropped.
According to Network International, a payment solutions provider, overall credit or debit card spending by Chinese shoppers in the UAE dropped by 22 per cent during Ramadan compared to the same period last year.
Asked if the number of Chinese visitors in Dubai is dropping due to the recent weakening of the yuan, Kazim said he did not see “a dramatic decrease”.
