By: Mahmoud Gamal

Dubai – Mubasher: Russian, German, and Chinese tourists visiting the emirate of Dubai have increased in the first nine months of 2018, according to data by the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), also known as Visit Dubai.

As the end of the year approaches, Visit Dubai conducted a survey of incoming tourists, which showed that the number of Russians jumped by 60% to 460,000 visitors between January and September this year from 288,000 in the same period of 2017.

Meanwhile, German tourists grew 15% year-on-year to 388,000 in the nine-month period ended 30 September from 338,000, the survey indicated, while Chinese tourist numbers increased 12% to 641,000 from 573,000 between January and September 2017.

Those three nationalities, Russian, Chinese, and German, continued to lead record growth rates on the back of entry visa benefits particularly for China and Russia, which the UAE government initiated almost two years ago.

Tourists coming from the United States also increased by around 4% in the first nine months of 2018 to 478,000 from 460,000 in the prior year period, the data showed.

Three Arab countries also made the top 10 list of the emirate’s visitors, all of which are from the GCC.

But which country topped the list of Dubai’s incoming visitors?

The Indian market led the number of visitors coming to the emirate, according to the DCTM, which said 1.469 million Indian visitors had arrived in Dubai between January and September, followed closely by Saudi Arabia with 1.225 million visitors.

The UK ranked third with 866,000 visitors and tourists in the nine-month period, followed by China at fourth place, Oman at fifth, while US visitors ranked sixth.

Russian visitors came in at seventh place, followed by Germany and Pakistan at eighth and ninth respectively, while visitors from Kuwait tailed the top 10 list.

By the end of September 2018, the total number of visitors entering Dubai reached 11.58 million.

Translated by: Nada Adel Sobhi