Tag Archives: DTCM

A record total of 8.06 million international overnight tourists arrived in Dubai during the first six months of 2017, reflecting a stellar 10.6 per cent increase over the same period last year. Figures released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) affirm the foundational strength and sustained acceleration of the emirate’s tourism sector, as it stayed the course of its impressive growth trajectory from January this year, underscoring the expanding appeal of Dubai as a global tourism destination of choice. Most of Dubai’s top 20 inbound visitor source markets saw positive or near-stable year-on-year performances in H1 2017, with five of the top 10 delivering double-digit growth. India continued to top the list of traffic generators and for the first time crossed the 1 million mark in a six-month period, with 1,051,000 Indians visiting the city between January and June. Saudi Arabia and the UK retained their spots as the second and third largest feeder markets respectively, with the latter delivering reliable volumes, backed by a solid 4 per cent year-on-year growth.

Millennium Airport Hotel Dubai sent a team on a special sales mission to China for the 2017 Dubai China Roadshow organised by The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). They visited Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou to explore the various colours of China and locate opportunities to extend their hotel business. Dubai is witnessing unprecedented demand from Chinese visitors. China is among the Top 5 source markets for Dubai. Elaborating on the success of the mission, Binu Varghese, Director of Sale and Marketing, Millennium Airport Hotel Dubai, said, “China is a growing market for us and holds strong potential. This year’s roadshow was hugely successful and gave us the opportunity to meet over 300 buyers from four key cities. FIT market development was a key focus for us along with continuous promotion of group business. In addition to highlighting our various offerings to buyers through one-on-one table talk, we got fantastic networking opportunities with local travel industry opinion leaders.”

The Dubai Association Centre (DAC), a joint initiative of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), in collaboration with the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) and Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), has announced the launch of the first-ever Dubai Association Conference which will be held 11-12 December 2017, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The event, a first of its kind in the region, reinforces the crucial role associations play in Dubai’s socio-economic development and its transition to a knowledge-based economy. The announcement was made at the prestigious Associations World Congress that is currently underway in Vienna, Austria. The Dubai Association Conference will welcome association executives from regional and international associations, government representatives, university faculties and students as well as other professionals with an interest in developing associations. The inaugural Conference, under the theme of ‘Building a Community’, is designed to cater to an increasing number of associations that are looking to expand within the Middle East, and the growing industries across disciplines from technology and healthcare to education and finance. It will also provide a platform to gain insights from international and regional experts on the latest trends in areas such as membership, online communities, restructuring education, volunteerism and governance, among others.

Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism), announced the launch of “Dubai Expert,” an online educational game that has been created exclusively for travel agents. The announcement was made to travel professionals attending this year’s Arabian Travel Market in Dubai. Created in collaboration with the Dubai College of Tourism (DCT) and KTM Advance, a specialist in e-learning, the learning tool is a marked departure from traditional training programmes. It features an engaging interface that includes information on Dubai’s tourism attractions in an easily-digestible format that will enable agents to promote the Emirate as the ideal holiday destination to their customers from around the world. Speaking at ATM 2017, Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), said: “Our partnerships with travel agents are critical to us as we look to expand our influence and reach across industry channels and stakeholders that influence tourists looking to visit Dubai. This also means that we need to keep developing new tools that allow us and our partners to highlight what makes Dubai a ‘must-visit’ destination. With the ‘Dubai Expert’ platform, we have used technology innovation to transcend typical training programmes and create an experience that enhances their knowledge of Dubai, so they can build customised itineraries that will attract more visitors. ‘Dubai Expert’ has been created to facilitate this process and is part of our continued endeavour to achieve our strategic goal of welcoming 20 million visitors by 2020.” ‘Dubai Expert’ operates as a turn-based card game, where participants will need to select the best cards – each with an attraction in the city – from an automatically generated deck, to create an ideal itinerary for a …

Dubai’s tourism sector sustained the momentum of its strong 2017 start, with the emirate’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) reporting a 11 per cent increase in overnight visitation in the first three months of the year compared to the same period in 2016. January to March 2017 saw 4.57 million travellers visit the city, reflecting more than double the growth achieved in the first quarter of last year. Among Dubai’s top 20 source markets for inbound tourism, China and Russia continued to top the growth trajectory charts with unparalleled 64 per cent and 106 per cent increases over Q1 2016, delivering 230,000 and 126,000 tourists respectively. Attributable in large part to the positive regulatory changes enabling citizens from both countries to obtain free visas-on-arrival in the UAE, this performance spike has resulted in both countries moving up in their rankings as key feeder markets for Dubai, with China at number four and Russia at number 11, edging closer to a return to the top 10. Retaining their stronghold on the top three positions were India, KSA and UK, accounting collectively for 30 per cent of total Q1 visitation to Dubai, with India becoming the first ever market to record nearly 580,000 visitors in any one quarter, with a massive 23 per cent growth in arrivals between January and March. Despite its 8 per cent drop over 2016, driven due to a backward shift in annual school holidays, KSA continued to drive volumes with 440,000 visitors, while UK rallied growth across the mega markets with its 5 per cent increase to mitigate the declines from KSA and Oman, which rounded off the top 5 with 214,000 overnight guests. …

Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) reported a 12 per cent year-on-year growth over the first two months of 2017, which saw Dubai welcoming just over three million visitors, nearly four times the rate of the previous year. Supported by growth in all key markets, China and Russia in particular drove the volumes and set the stage for a strong first quarter result. This period witnessed a 60 per cent growth in overnight tourists from China with January alone peaking at a dramatic 102 per cent, while attracting a total of 157,000 Chinese visitors across just the first two months. Reflecting an even more significant percentage increase, Russian visitation jumped 84 per cent over the same period last year with February delivering a massive 140 per cent volume increase to bring a total of 65,000 travellers in the first two months. Consequently, both contributing countries moved up in their rankings as key source markets for inbound tourism to Dubai with China entering the top 4 for the first time and Russia moving to just outside the top 10, up 4 places from 15. His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General, Dubai Tourism, said: “As we continue to invest in raising consideration for Dubai as the destination of choice for global travellers, our focus at Dubai Tourism is equally on increasing Dubai’s accessibility and removing barriers to travel by working closely with partners and stakeholders in the public and private sectors on both a federal and emirate level. Ultimately our collective aim is to make it as easy and seamless as possible for any prospective tourist from our diversified base of source markets to visit and revisit Dubai. We …

Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) has announced updates to the Desert Tour & Camp Regulations first introduced in May last year. The revisions are intended to further enhance the emirate’s popular desert experiences, elevating the sector’s standards and bolstering Dubai’s reputation as an adventure hub with a distinct and diverse offering. Dubai Tourism has created a more manageable and cohesive set of rules for desert tour and camp operators to follow, which will ultimately simplify and streamline compliance across the sector. These optimisations are a result of continued collaboration between Dubai Tourism and key government departments including Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA), Dubai Municipality, and the Directorate of Civil Defence. Khalid Bin Touq, Executive Director of Tourism Activities and Classification Sector, Dubai Tourism, said: “In order to further improve standards across the many desert experiences and desert-based activities available in Dubai, all of which remain integral to our tourism agenda, we are committed to helping tour operators by providing an easier and more transparent list of regulations. This is a result of our open dialogue with key industry and government partners, and we are grateful for their continued support as we collectively work towards our shared goal of evolving our targets and services to establish sector-wide best practices, which benefit both operators and tourists.” The updated regulations will be rolled out to desert camp and tour operators in stages to ensure smooth implementation. In addition, Dubai Tourism has put together and made available to its partners and stakeholders a clarification document providing answers to frequently asked questions. These cover everything from health and safety aspects, such as ensuring staff are trained in first aid and displaying …

Dubai College of Tourism (DCT), part of Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism), hosted the first HR Forum at the Grand Hyatt Dubai. The event, attended by more than 150 people from over 100 hotels operating in the city, focused on DCT’s efforts to train and empower the emirate’s tourist-facing workforce, which is expected to grow to more than half a million by 2020. Ensuring a knowledgeable, well-rounded hospitality workforce that delivers exceptional service is a critical component of Dubai Tourism’s strategy towards meeting its Tourism Vision 2020 goals, which include welcoming 20 million visitors per year by the start of the next decade. The event was an opportunity to introduce forthcoming DCT programmes, including Dubai Way, a detailed online training course designed to improve the knowledge of the tourist-facing workforce, as well as the Tourism Employee System, a unified platform created by Dubai Tourism and Dubai Police that maintains the industry’s employment records and is designed to improve administrative efficiency. Also on the agenda was Dubai Tourism’s new ‘Medyaf’ initiative that seeks to place UAE nationals in customer-facing roles within the tourism industry. Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, commented: “Dubai is already well known for its exceptional service and visitor experience, but as we work towards increasing the number of visitors to the city in line with our Tourism Vision 2020, it’s crucial that we not only maintain these levels, but also raise the bar even higher. To that end, Dubai Tourism and Dubai College of Tourism are committed to working closely with our public and private sector stakeholders and partners by offering world-class training programmes. This is to ensure …

The UAE is participating in this year’s Outbound Travel Market (OTM) that will take place from February 21 to 23, 2017 in Mumbai. The Ministry of Economy will organise a national pavilion under the theme ‘Visit UAE’ which will feature exhibitors from more than 18 government entities and private sector representatives from the hospitality, tourism and aviation sectors. Abdullah Saleh Al Hammadi, Director of the Ministry’s Tourism Department will be part of the delegation that will comprise senior representatives from local departments and authorities, most notably the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority; Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM); Sharjah Tourism and Commerce Development Authority; Ajman Tourism Development Department; Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority; and Fujairah Tourism and Antiquities Authority. Emirates airline, an elite group of hotels and hospitality and tourism companies, in addition to Miral Asset Management’s Yas Island, Dubai Parks, and Cleveland Clinics, which will promote medical tourism in the UAE, will be represented as well. H.E Eng. Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori, UAE Minister of Economy, said that the UAE’s participation in OTM 2017 is of great significance given the improvement of Indian tourism at the global level. He referred to India as one of the UAE’s most important tourist markets due to their countries’ deep historical ties at all levels – politically, economically and culturally. The Minister added that the exhibition is a unique international platform for promoting joint cooperation in tourism. He pointed out that Indian tourists accounted for about 8.5 per cent of the total number of inbound tourism to the UAE in 2016 which saw the number of tourists grow by around 9 per cent from the previous year to …

With the opening of the 21st season at the entertainment destination Global Village with the concept of a new world every day, the visitor numbers for the first two months from November 1 to December 31, 2016, have gone up to 2.3 million. It was stated at a recent press meeting with the CEO Ahmad Hussain Bin Essa that over 250,000 tickets were sold at the smart solutions with smart gates which was just introduced during this season and as the social media presence had been extremely active they have been able to sell the tickets in various new and innovative ways such as special family packs at the fuel stations which would increase the awareness amongst the residents living around and they have determined that the current length of stay of the guests on average is about six hours. He further stated that this season they signed an MOU with 42 top travel agents in order to increase the number of tourists visiting the destination.  They have been very active in most road shows alongside DTCM with a focus on Russia, Africa, India and China markets. Their main aim is to improve the guest experience and ensure that they have the happiness meter at a very high level.