Looking at the country’s top three source markets, the number of Indian visitors travelling to the UAE will increase at a CAGR of 7% to 3.01 million in 2023, while arrivals from Saudi Arabia and the UK will witness an increase of 2% and 1% to 1.76 million and 1.28 million respectively over the same period.
While the UAE’s top source market rankings are expected to remain mostly unchanged post-Expo 2020 –the latest research from Colliers International, in partnership with ATM, reveals the Russian and Chinese source markets will show above average annual growth rates for inbound passenger arrivals.
Danielle Curtis, Exhibition Director ME, Arabian Travel Market, said: “The number of Russian tourists travelling to the UAE will increase at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12% to 1.6 million in 2023, while the number of Chinese tourists visiting the UAE will increase at a CAGR of 8% to 1.27 million over the same period, according to the data.”
“Regarding Chinese visitors, according to some analysts China’s middle-class will swell to 338 million households by 2020, a 13% increase in just five years. Moreover, by 2030 35% of China’s 1.4 billion population will have $10,000 of annual disposable income, up 10% from 2018. Therefore, the growth potential for both markets is significant.”
With 20 million annual visitors expected to visit Dubai by 2020, plus an additional five million between October 2020 and April 2021 – 70% of which will come from outside the UAE – the overall hospitality supply in the emirate is expected to increase by 39% from 59,561 keys in 2017 to 82,994in 2021 to meet this demand.
Meanwhile in neighbouring emirate Abu Dhabi, the number of rooms across three, four and five-star properties is forecast to grow 13% from 21,782 in 2017 to 24,565 in 2021.
“Just as Dubai and Abu Dhabi have their own unique set of visitor attractions, we are now seeing the northern emirates carving stronger identities, supported by their respective tourism authorities. And, while Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Fujairah are smaller thanDubai and Abu Dhabi in terms of supply, they are evolving quickly,” Curtis said.
Ras Al Khaimahis working on an unprecedented pipeline, which will more than double the number of hotel rooms, from 4,019 in 2017 to 9,078 in 2021, the largest proportionate pipeline in the GCC.
The number of hotel rooms in Sharjah is also expected to more than double between 2017 and 2021, taking the total number of hotel rooms in the emirate to 5,295 by 2021. Meanwhile, Fujairah will add almost 500 keys over the same period taking its total stock to 2,543 rooms.
