Dubai: Dubai welcomed 15.92 million visitors in 2018, an increase of 0.8 per cent year-on-year, according to a report from the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing ahead of the Arabian Travel Market, which brings together 2,800 exhibitors from all over the world at Dubai World Trade Centre from April 28 to May 1.
The emirate was also ranked the world’s fourth most visited city for the fourth year in a row by the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index (GDCI) 2018 and topped the list of global cities with the highest international overnight visitor spend for the third year in a row.
Western Europe was the largest contributor to overnight visitor volumes in 2018 making up 21 per cent, followed by the GCC and South Asia at 18 and 17 per cent respectively. Dubai Airport retained its position as the world’s busiest airport with nearly 90 million travellers, while Emirates airline carried over 59 million passengers on an average of 3,700 flights per week. In total Emirates operated over 192,000 flights, with a fleet of 274 aircraft to its 157 destinations. All this points favourably to Dubai meeting its target of welcoming 25 million visitors by 2025.
