BY Shahd Alhamdan
JEDDAH — With plans to attract 20 million tourists by 2020, Dubai has developed a novel plan to achieve this vision.
Focusing on new tourism markets, opening new theme parks, expanding some of the current malls, concentrating on family trips, and promoting Dubai through private and public corporations in the tourism sector are just some of the measures the Emirate has outlined to achieve its goal.
Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing CEO, Issam AbdulRahim Kazim, said that by 2012, the number of tourists in Dubai reached 10 million, and by 2020 the vision is to double the number of the tourists.
Kazim said the Emirate wants to focus more on family tourism by having more three and four star hotels, especially near the malls, that provide the same quality as five stars hotels.
Under the plan, the Mall of the Emirates will be expanded, new shops will be opened, and new offers at the cinema will be provided to mall visitors, such as having the famous chief Gary Rhodes in the cinema so people can enjoy eating while watching movies.
To achieve 2020 vision, many cultural and social activities will be held during the year, special events will take place during Ramadan and Eid, and new theme parks will also be opened.
“Packages for this theme park will be offered so people can enjoy spending the whole day in the park and enjoy playing in many games and entertaining themselves. It is a park that suites children and adults,” he said.
In August, IMG World of Adventure, one of the largest indoors parks, opened, and Dubai Parks And Resorts will be also opened this year in October.
“We want tourists extending their staying and spend more days. We want to concentrate on attracting more expands living in the Gulf area. We will focus also on other markets, new ones, such as the African market,” he said.
According to Kazim, research shows that tourists from Angola have the fourth highest master card and visa card expenditure in Dubai, although few numbers of people from Angola visit Dubai.
He added that getting the attention of Muslim countries, including Malaysia, is part of their plan to accomplish the 2020 vision.
Int he first three months of 2016, Dubai welcomed over 4 million overnight visitors, a 5 percent increase over the same period last year.
Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest markets when it comes to tourism for the Emirate.
Visitors from the Kingdom grew 14 percent to 476,000 from January to March in 2016, making it the number one source country, followed by strong growth from Oman, which increased by 32 percent over the same period.
