Tourism In UAE

9 Pages 2284 Words

sifying the sources of its national income. The UAE has been able to grasp the realities of the age and place itself among those countries, which focus on the tourism industry.
The UAE has exerted a great deal of effort to attract tourists, especially among people visiting for conferences and exhibitions, and within a short span of time in the life of the country, it has become a central stopover and a significant attraction for businessmen and participants in conferences. This extensive promotion of the UAE as a tourist destination over the past several years has yielded positive results. The number of tourists visiting the Emirates increased significantly from 1.92 million in 1997 to 2.31 million in 1998. More than half of them came to Dubai, where they spent 3.97 million nights at its hotels, compared with 652,887 tourists visiting Abu Dhabi and spending 1,638,222 bed nights.
Sharjah hosted 352,398 tourists, spending 960,112 nights. Statistical studies show that 33 per cent of the tourists visiting the UAE in 1998 were Europeans, 28 per cent were from the Gulf countries, 26 per cent were Asians, 9 per cent were Arabs and 4 per cent came from the Americas. In order to cope with this influx, the number of hotels in the UAE rose from 275 in 1997 to 332 in 1998, an 11 per cent increase it said, adding that the number of hotel rooms were up from 19,258 with 37,526 beds to 27,834 with 45,105 beds. The number of nights spent at hotels increased from 5.8 million in 1997 to 6.67 million in 1998, an 18 per cent rise. The average duration of stay by each tourist also showed an increased, a good sign of tourism development paying-off, while the hotels' occupancy rate rose from 58 per cent to 61 per cent in 1998.
Total hotel revenues rose from Dh 2.78 billion in 1997 to Dh 3.51 billion in 1998. Dubai representing 75 per cent of the total number in the country while Abu Dhabi come next with hotels, 13 per cent of the total. Sharjah accounti...