Tourist numbers in the Middle East saw the largest fall of any region in the world during the first four months of this year, but the UAE bucked the trend with growth of 3 per cent, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said yesterday.
Since the downturn began to bite in earnest late last year, Dubai has launched promotions to lure tourists, including hefty hotel discounts, cheap airfares, retail sales and a special "kids go free" summer offer.
The region saw tourism decline by 18 per cent between January and April compared with the same period last year, according to preliminary figures from the UN organisation's World Tourism Barometer.
Globally, international tourism declined by 8 per cent.
"The Middle East is cooling down from a number of years of very fast growth," said John Kester, the chief of market trends, competitiveness and trade in tourism services at the UNWTO.
Last year, tourist arrivals in the Middle East rose faster than anywhere else, at 18.2 per cent up on the previous year.
Saudi Arabia was a big factor in the decline this year, the UNWTO said, with arrivals down 60 per cent in the first quarter of the year.
Rob O'Hanlon, a partner at Deloitte Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure, said: "The extent to which the global slowdown has taken place has impacted leisure tourism and business tourism, particularly out of Europe, which is affecting the Middle East. That, combined with last year being such a bumper year, means you have a double impact."
Mr O'Hanlon said a recovery in the region depended on a recovery in source markets, particularly Europe. "With the significant investment that has gone into hotel infrastructure and conference facilities, I think as and when global markets start to become more active and we start seeing travel taking place, the Middle East is particularly well placed with the reduction in the rates that have come through, and its location relative to the rest of the world," he said.
Destinations worldwide recorded a total of 247 million international tourist arrivals in the first four months of this year, down from 269 million last year, the report said.
"Tourism is seriously impacted, given the sharp reduction in business activity, decreasing disposable income and associated increased unemployment, particularly in key tourism source markets," it said. The report also said swine flu, which severely affected the tourism market worldwide in the spring, might still hurt global travel.
The UNWTO said it had revised its forecast for the full year, "taking account of the results for the first four months of the year and the current market conditions".
It forecast that international tourism would fall by between 4 per cent and 6 per cent this year, as the pace of decline was expected to ease during the remainder of the year.
Tourist arrivals to Europe were down 10 per cent in the first four months of the year, the Americas were down 5 per cent, and the Asia/Pacific region was down 6 per cent. Africa, meanwhile, saw tourism increase by 3 per cent.
rbundhun@thenational.ae
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Match info
Australia 580
Pakistan 240 and 335
Result: Australia win by an innings and five runs
Specs
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Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
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Brett Anderson
Little Brown Book Group
Company profile
Name: Thndr
Started: October 2020
Founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: pre-seed of $800,000
Funding stage: series A; $20 million
Investors: Tiger Global, Beco Capital, Prosus Ventures, Y Combinator, Global Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel, Endure Capital, 4DX Ventures, Plus VC, Rabacap and MSA Capital
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
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6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
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8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
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KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The biog
Name: Salem Alkarbi
Age: 32
Favourite Al Wasl player: Alexandre Oliveira
First started supporting Al Wasl: 7
Biggest rival: Al Nasr
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The Old Slave and the Mastiff
Patrick Chamoiseau
Translated from the French and Creole by Linda Coverdale
The view from The National
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
