Dubai continues to climb the ranks as a world travel destination, per MasterCard’s third annual Global Destination Cities Index. The UAE’s travel hub has consistently advanced its position because the inception of the Index in 2011, ranking ninth in its launch year, eighth in 2012 and seventh within the 2013 edition.
Dubai is determined to be the seventh finest city globally when it comes to inbound international visitors in 2013, outranking cities equivalent to Hong Kong, Barcelona, Milan and Rome. At 10.9 percent, Dubai (in conjunction with Bangkok) shows the strongest growth in arrival numbers a number of the top ten global markets, with 9.89 million overnight visitors expected this year.
Dubai also ranks eighth globally by international overnight visitor spend, with an estimated US$10.4 billion to be spent within the city during 2013. The Index indicates that if all top 10 destination cities maintainside their current rates of growth in the following couple of years, Dubai will surpass Singapore and Long island in 2016 and Paris in 2017 on the subject of international visitor arrivals.
The top five origin cities for Dubai are London, Kuwait, Paris, Frankfurt and Doha, and all of those are expected to grow strongly in visitor numbers in 2013. London visitors are expected to extend by 26.3 percent in 2013, followed by those from Paris (16.9 percent), Kuwait (12.4 percent), Doha (9.5 percent) and Frankfurt (9.4 percent).
“While the center East and Africa’s top ten cities lineup is precisely similar to in 2012, there’s a striking difference in how far Dubai is earlier than the alternative cities. Its international arrival number is nearly twice that of Riyadh in second rank, and about four times as high because the third-ranked Johannesburg,” said Dr. Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, Global Economic Advisor for MasterCard and the writer of the report.
The Middle East and Africa’s top five destination cities by international overnights visitors are Dubai (9.9 million), Riyadh (5.0 million), Johannesburg (2.5 million), Amman (2.4 million) and Lagos (2.2 million).
Among the center East and Africa’s top ten, Abu Dhabi (ranked seventh with 1.7 million visitors) showed the strongest growth rate, with an anticipated 16.1 percent increase in arrivals. The Index highlights that, if these rates are maintained within the coming years, Abu Dhabi will overtake Lagos in 2016 and match Johannesburg by 2017. The UAE’s capital also ranked sixth a few of the global top 20 with reference to growth rates of international visitor arrivals between 2009 and 2013, with growth of 96.8 percent in this period.
Within the center East and Africa, Dubai ranks first by international overnight visitor spend, followed by Riyadh and Beirut. Beirut’s position on this ranking is remarkable, seeing that Lebanon’s capital seriously is not one of several top ten cities inside the region by visitor arrivals. The US$2.8 billion expected to be spent inside the capital this year reflects the attraction that the town holds for more affluent consumers.
“The inauguration of the Index in 2011 has helped us record Dubai’s remarkable growth story, and the Index has proven to be a trusted barometer of the market’s performance within the global landscape. Home to the world’s second busiest airport, Dubai has gone from strength to strength, and continues to develop its offerings because it plans to attract much more visitors within the coming years,” shared Raghu Malhotra, Division President, Middle East and North Africa, MasterCard.
“The global travel sector have been supported by the numerous developments within the electronic payments sphere, and we see more consumers profiting from programs and provides that make international travel more achievable and bother free. At MasterCard, we’re going to continue to work with our partners to bring travelers safe and meaningful payment options to fit their lifestyle needs as we continue to contribute towards the expansion of worldwide economy,” Malhotra concluded.
Globally, Bangkok outranked London as 2013’s no 1 destination city with only about 25,000 visitors separating the 2 – a difference of about one percent. The Index predicts that Bangkok will draw the best international visitor numbers in 2013, previous to London, Paris, Singapore, and Long island.
The MasterCard Index of worldwide Destination Cities ranks cities with regards to the selection of their total international visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by these same visitors within the destination cities, and offers visitor and passenger growth forecasts for 2013.
This Index and the accompanying reports aren’t in line with MasterCard volumes or transactional data.