Travel industry stays afloat

Outbound travelers from the UAE spent Dh39.5 billion from 5.06 million trips and 76.7 million room nights last year. "Given that over 80 per cent of the estimated five million UAE population comprises expatriates, the outbound travel sector is fairly resilient in that most expatriates do tend to travel to their home countries on vacation at least once in two years," said the report. As opposed to this, around 2.79 million US citizens travelled outside the country in January, thus registering of growth of 3.1 per cent. The report also said that around two-thirds of the residents in UAE go abroad about once a year and the figure has remained unchanged for many years now. The only exception was 2009 when the figure dipped a little.

Meanwhile, tourism all over the world fell by six per cent last year. "[The year] 2009 was a challenging year for world tourism, as it faced the impact of the global economic crisis and the outbreak of the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic," said the report.