Dubai tourism rebounds as visitor numbers surge 137% to 11.4m

The number of international visitors to Dubai more than doubled in the first 10 months of 2022, as occupancy levels reached among the highest in the world, said Helal Saeed Al Marri, director general of Department of Economy and Tourism (DET).

The emirate received 11.4 million visitors between January and October 2022, an increase of 134 percent year-on-year, he told the Skift Global Forum East.

The numbers are close to the pre-pandemic record of 13.50 million visitors in the first 10 months of 2019.

Dubai’s international tourism arrivals significantly outperformed other major global destinations, giving the emirate a head start on post-pandemic recovery.

Average hotel occupancy between January and October 2022 stood at 71 percent, one of the highest hotel occupancies in the world. This compares to 64 percent in the corresponding period of last year and just short of the 74 percent during the pre-pandemic period of 2019.

Dubai’s occupancy continued to closely trail the top benchmark cities: Istanbul (75 percent), New York (74 percent), Paris (73 percent), London (73 percent) and Los Angeles (72 percent).

Hotels registered strong growth as supply rose by 18 percent over pre-pandemic levels.

Dubai’s hotel inventory in October 2022 comprised 144,737 rooms at 790 hotels compared with 122,185 keys across 724 hotels in October 2019.

Hotels delivered a combined 30.40 million occupied room nights in the first 10 months of the year, a 23 percent year-to-date growth and a 17 percent increase over the corresponding pre-pandemic period of 2019.