Dubai’s purported plans for growth in the tourism sector seem to be on the right track as evidenced by the surge in number of visitors — 5.5 million; up by 11.1 per cent from last year — in the first half of this year. Dubai’s Tourism Vision 2020 seeks to position the emirate as the foremost destination for leisure and business travellers. This has been continuously tweaked by evolving the broad and diverse tourism offerings, as well as attracting visitors from all kinds of markets.
Infrastructure has been put into place and plans have been announced to ensure that, when the surge in tourism intensifies, the emirate will be well-placed to tackle this phenomenon. All stakeholders that are involved in engaging tourists to the emirate have recorded healthy numbers — airlines, airports, hotels, hotel apartments, etc. What is more important, however, is the brand promise that Dubai holds out to its diverse clientele globally. There is no compromise on the quality of the service, or the infrastructure that is on offer.
The standards had been set when initial plans to boost tourism were announced. It now compares with the very best in the world. A lot of due diligence has gone into the process of benchmarking and naturally the tourism sector is reacting to this. The stand out feature for Dubai’s growth in the tourism sector is the fact that the consequences have been smooth and streamlined. This augurs well for the future. It is not a result of a knee-jerk reaction to other unexplained market forces in the region, but testimony to the fact that nothing succeeds like vision and constructive planning.
