Dubai has just released its tourism figures for the year 2022. The Emirate announced that it welcomed 14.36 million visitors "for one night or more" between January and December 2022.
According to the latest data released by the Department of Economy and Tourism, this represents a 97% increase over the 7.28 million visitors recorded in 2021.
Overall, Western Europe accounted for 21% of the total number of visitors in 2022, (a slight decrease from 2021, which recorded a score of 22% over the same period) with the United Kingdom leading the way, followed by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
South Asia contributed 17% (18% in 2021) of international visits, while Russia, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and Eastern Europe contributed 11% (15% in 2021).
The hotel sector has benefited from this recovery. The average occupancy rate in 2022 is 73 percent, up from 67 percent in 2021. "This figure is somewhat lower than the 75% occupancy rate in the pre-pandemic period of 2019, but still represents significant growth over last year," states a press release.
According to the DET (Department of Economy and Tourism) performance report, "Dubai's tourism recovery is well above the global average as evidenced by the number of occupied room nights which reached a record high of 37.43 million last year, an increase of 19% over 2021 (31.47 million) and 17% over the pre-pandemic period in 2019 (32.11 million occupied room nights)."
The total number of hotels has increased by six percent compared to 2021 - to over 800 hotels offering a total of almost 150,000 rooms. These figures are proof of the continuing high level of investor confidence in Dubai's tourism sector.