Dubai hotel boom set to continue
DUBAI – An additional 22,000 hotel rooms will be available in Dubai by the end of 2008, helping to overcome a room shortage blamed for hampering visitor growth.
Dubai had a total of 415 hotels and furnished apartments last year, offering about 40,000 rooms in various categories, according to the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM).
“By the end of 2008 we will have about 22,000 more hotel rooms available,” Khalifa Ali Buamaim, DTCM’s director of overseas promotions, told Gulf News.
“We could have attracted more tourists in 2006 if we did not have a shortage of hotel rooms,” he added.
Dubai hotels received about 6.5 million guests in 2006 compared with 6.1 million a year before.
Arrivals from some important markets did not improve last year. The number of people from Russia, Central Asia and Baltic countries staying at Dubai hotels was 422,229, almost unchanged from 2005.
Top source markets include Britain, Germany, India and Saudi Arabia.
Buamaim said the DTCM would target markets such as South Korea and Spain to attract more visitors.
The number of hotels will increase from 303 to 325 this year, providing an additional 8,370 rooms, and seven new hotel apartments will add 1,936 rooms, he said.
The tourism department projects the number of hotel rooms to increase to 93,867 in 2016 when 31 properties planned as part of the Bawadi project in Dubailand will be ready.
Bawadi will have 29,000 hotel rooms, including 6,500 in the Asia-Asia, the world’s biggest planned hotel.
Ian Jarrett
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