Dubai has strong and dynamic tourism sector

Dubai Chamber of Commerce and industry (DCCI) indicated in a study published on Monday that Dubai has developed a strong and dynamic tourism sector serving business travelers to the region, expatriates and their friends and families and regional and global customers and tourists.

Dubai ranks among the top 10 most visited cities in the world.

The tourism sector can be differentiated into number of market segments. The most basic differentiation is based on the motive for travel-business or leisure.

Among the leisure tourists, there can be further differentiation among friends and families of large expatriate population in Dubai, the regional tourists from neighboring countries who travel to Dubai for shopping and entertainment and the tourists from different parts of the world who visit Dubai for its unique mix of shopping, sun and entertainment.

According to a survey conducted by Dubai department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), about two thirds of the visitors in Dubai are leisure tourists and one third is business travelers.

The tourism sector comprises of an array of essential activities ranging from hotels and restaurants, food and catering, tourism activities including resorts, adventure sports etc. The cluster for the sector comprises of many core activities that are supported by the linked sectors and market segments as also by related institutional bodies to complete the chain of activities in the tourism sector.

Among the core activities are the transportation activities led by airlines industry in Dubai, hotels and restaurants serving the tourists, shopping destinations attracting tourists to Dubai, entertainment destinations like the resorts, adventure sporting hubs etc and the tour operators active in Dubai and globally.

These core activities are supported by various other activities in the sector that contribute substantially to the economic scenario of Dubai. Some of these supporting activities include food and catering industry, facility management and cleaning services at many of these core industries, local transportation for the tourists, and local financial and health services catering to the visitors in Dubai.

Other sectors in Dubai like the finance and construction sector provide the push to tourism sector from the demand side, of both the business travelers for these sectors and also the friends and families of large number of expatriates working in these sectors. The logistics sector smoothen the value chain of the economic activities in the tourism sector.

Tourism sector is also supported in terms of competitive conditions and business environment by industry associations and regulatory bodies like DTCM.

The tourism sector thus has a deep cluster in Dubai with presence of all core activities and wide supporting industries rivaling the global tourist destinations.

Competitive scenario for the tourism sector in Dubai Dubai tourism sector has been able to combine phenomenal capacity and supply growth with rising price level. Thus the demand for tourism sector has outpaced the substantial supply of services in the economy.

The factors driving this trend are a mix of natural advantage gained by its geographical location and developed advantage in terms of aggressive infrastructure development. For the airport services, airlines, quality of hotels and services and all such tourism related infrastructure, Dubai ranks among the top destinations globally.

Besides the law and order and social conditions of Dubai has gained it a reputation of being a safe place for tourists and this hugely helps the sector. The demographic trend of large number of expatriate population also boosts the demand for the sector in terms of the friends and families of resident visiting the city in large numbers. In addition well planned and targeted events like Dubai Shopping Festival also attracts large number of tourists.