By: Mahmoud Gamal
Dubai - Mubasher: The UAE's tourism sector witnessed a noticeable recovery during the last couple of years, with Indian visitors leading inbound tourists.
Combined, the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi have attracted more than 11.6 million visitors in 2018, which reaffirmed the UAE’s postion as a top tourism and entertainment destination.
India is one of the top targets to the Emirati market, with the number of visitors expected to increase 20% by the end of 2018.
Indians, Saudis, and British tourists led the list of visitors this year, as shown by the figures of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM).
Dubai received around 10.44 million visitors this year, compared to 10.4 million in 2017, with around 1.316 million Indian visitor.
The new transit procedures allowing a free-entry for the first 48 hours is expected to further increase the number of foreign visitors.
Dubai aims at achieving the goal of increasing the number of tourists to 20 million by the year 2020.
Events, conferences, and various major cultural and sports events are expected to help achieve this target, especially with Expo 2020.
Meanwhile, the number of Indian visitors to Abu Dhabi rose to 227,000 by the end of 2018.
China and India are the top sources of visitors to the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
The number of Indian tourists increased by 11% to more than 360,000 in 2017.
