Dubai – Mubasher: Dubai attracted 15.92 million in international overnight visitors in 2018, nearing its target to be the world’s most visited city.

Several specialised global outreach programmes have been conducted by Dubai Tourism to achieve this record number of visitors, Arabian Business reported, citing Dubai Tourism’s director general Helal Saeed Almarri as saying.

“Exposing [Dubai's tourism] industry to new potential in order to convert a higher share of the dynamically evolving global outbound travel market has helped steady Dubai’s base tourism volumes throughout last year,” Almarri indicated.

Indians topped foreigners visiting Dubai by more than 2 million visitors, on the back of business partnerships with key national leaders and publications such as Times of India as well as customised destination-focused campaigns including the multi-award-winning #BeMyGuest campaign starring Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

Saudi Arabian visitors to Dubai came in at the second place with 1.6 million visitors, driven by tailored activations such as customised programmes and promotions for the Saudi national day celebrations across the city.

As for the European market, the UK ranked first with 1.2 million visitors although Brexit talks negatively affected outbound travel from the country.

In addition, visitors from China to the emirate rose by 12% to 857,000, while Russians increased 28% to 678,000, and Germans went up 12% to 506,000 last year. 

Dubai’s hotel sector witnessed an 8% year-on-year increase over the course of 2018 as the total number of hotel and hotel apartment keys surged to 115,967 across 716 establishments.