Hotels in Dubai welcome more than 11.6m guests in 2014

For January to December 2014, Dubai’s top ten hotel guest source markets included Saudi Arabia at the top, followed by India, UK, USA, Iran, Oman, China, Kuwait, Russia and Germany. China moved from tenth position to seventh, experiencing 24.9% growth in the last 12 months with 344,329 hotel guests compared to 275,675 in 2013. The March 2014 UAE federal ruling that exempted citizens of 13 European member states from requiring a pre-entry visa to the UAE – joining the other 15 European member states for which the exemption already applied – contributed to increases in hotel guest numbers from European countries.

The figures for 2014 indicate that Dubai is continuing to maintain growth at a sustainable level, while also growing its portfolio of hotels and hotel apartment establishments, thus taking another step closer to achieving its Tourism Vision for 2020, which aims to welcome 20 million visitors a year by 2020.