Tag Archives: Russian

A total of 106,693 Russian guests stayed at hotels in Sharjah during the first six months of 2017 compared to 54,017 guests during the same period last year, according to a report by the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA). This is a welcome sign of recovery of one of the most important source markets for the emirate of Sharjah. The emirate’s tourism market was hard hit by the decline of Russia’s outbound tourism in 2014-2015, due to a steep drop in value of the Russian currency in 16 years. Global outbound tourism from Russia fell by 15 per cent in 2014, by almost 20 per cent in 2015 and by 8 per cent last year. Meanwhile, Sharjah, which received 400,000 Russian hotel guests during 2014, saw the numbers of Russian hotel guests drop to 54,000 in 2015. The results from the first half of this year now confirm Russia’s position as of Sharjah’s top two fasted growing inbound tourism markets. China has, so far, proved to be the emirate’s most consistent growth market increasing from nearly 31,000 in H1 2015 to 49,000 in H1 2016 and reaching 62,000 during the first half of this year. According to SCTDA statements, Sharjah’s hotels enjoyed a 70 percent occupancy rate from January to June this year and registered a total of 885,000 hotel guests during the period. China, India, Oman, Russia and Saudi Arabia were the biggest inbound tourism markets for Sharjah during the first half of 2017.

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