In the first half of this year, the UAE’s tourism sales exceeded $5 billion, and strong performance is anticipated this winter when neighboring Qatar holds the FIFA World Cup.
“Our tourism sector’s revenues surpassed Dh19 billion in the first half of 2022. The total number of hotel guests reached 12 million, achieving 42 percent growth, and we expect a strong tourism performance in this winter season,” His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said.
Dubai is expecting to host large numbers of football fans during the World Cup in November and December. The emirate is one of the Gulf cities operating daily shuttle flights to and from Qatar during the tournament.
Of the more than 90 new flights that will land each day in the host city, Doha, about 40 will leave from the UAE.
Dubai airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, handled 27.9 million passengers in the first half of this year, up more than 160 percent in the same period of 2021, it said last month.
During the first six months of 2022, DXB handled a total of 154,993 flight movements, up 55.9 percent compared to the first half of 2021.
The airport expects to host 62.4 million passengers for the full year.
The UAE was able to recover from the pandemic rapidly because to a rapid vaccination roll-out and a strong increase in tourism when Dubai held the Expo global exposition from October to March of last year.
