The Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism has revealed that the emirate welcomed 4.88 million visitors between January and October last year.

International visitation during October alone reaching over one million guests.

Reflecting the rising growth momentum and stability of the industry, strong international visitation was complemented by a robust domestic tourism market, further boosting the hospitality sector resulting in 9.4 million room nights sold between January and October.

This is in comparison to seven million room nights sold in the same period in 2019.

Helal Saeed Almarri, director general of the Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism, commented: “Our multi-pronged strategy to combat the pandemic and deployment of wide-ranging initiatives to increase our global competitiveness and attractiveness is a hallmark of Dubai’s highly progressive public-private partnership model, which has been a cornerstone of not only what was achieved in 2021 but what will be achieved in the next critical 12 to 24-month period.

“Expo 2020 also provides us a unique platform to engage with the global community as all hotels and tourism partners work closely to facilitate visits for their guests to maximise this opportunity.”

In a year-to-date study in October, occupancy was at almost 64 per cent, while the length of stay showed a 12 per cent increase from 4.1 nights to 4.6 nights.

During this period, there were 24.74 million occupied rooms nights across the emirate at an average daily rate of AED384, in comparison to 15.66 million occupied room nights at an average daily rate of AED335.

Room inventory is now six per cent higher than 2019.