Leisure & Hospitality Chinese tourists visiting Dubai up by a third By Pramod Kumar February 18, 2025, 9:51 AM WAM Dubai focused on attracting Chinese tourists by expanding Chinese-language tour guides, and organising special events for Chinese New Year The number of Chinese tourists visiting Dubai surged by nearly a third year on year in 2024, according to a news report. The emirate welcomed 824,000 Chinese tourists last year, an increase of 31 percent, the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency reported, citing data from the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET). Dubai focused on attracting Chinese tourists by introducing easier payment options, expanding Chinese-language tour guides, and organising special events during the Chinese New Year, including light shows and so-called “red envelope giveaways”, the report said. The emirate has already rolled out a variety of attractions, such as light shows, live broadcasts of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala at Dubai International Airport, and discounts and promotions on Alipay and WeChat Pay during the 2025 Spring Festival. The Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, and called the Spring Festival in China, lasted 15 days from January 29. Luxury travel is the engine of the Saudi tourism market Foreign tourists to Dubai up 9% Moroccan tourism startups build momentum ahead of World Cup Last month, a study by travel insight specialist ForwardKeys found that arrivals from China to the UAE have grown by 9 percent year on year. Although the exact details of the dates surveyed or the total number of passengers were not given, the company said the figure was up 14 percent on pre-pandemic figures. Earlier this month, official data showed that Dubai received nearly 19 million international overnight visitors in 2024, a 9 percent increase from the previous year.
