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A newspaper report recently spoke of Dubai opening 45 new hotels in the past one year, raising the total number to 814.
Admirable for sure and, to be specific, this number is only in Dubai and not the entire country.
This shows how much progress has been made economically in the last months and how such a large number is needed to accommodate the large number of tourists who annually descend on the emirate, attracted by its national identity, security and stability.
This also speaks volumes of Dubai’s infrastructure, its laws and facilities to investors and the durability and strength of the tourism sector, making it one of the world’s most preferred destinations.
The newspaper report also spoke of Dubai International Airport receiving more than 21.2 million passengers during the first quarter of this year, an increase of 55.8 per cent when compared with the same period in 2022.
The Department of Economy and Tourism in Dubai is expecting the capacity of Dubai hotels to increase from 137,950 rooms by the end of 2021 to 146,526 hotel rooms by the end of this year, an increase of 6.2pc in two years.
The UAE is now among the 10 fastest-growing global tourist destinations according to the World Tourism Organisation, with the number of incoming tourists in the country reaching 15.5m, who are spending $18.7 billion while adding 5.2pc to the gross domestic product. The total contribution of the tourism sector is now $42.3bn, equivalent to 12.1pc of the gross domestic product.
I also read another news report that Dubai’s Emirates Group, that owns Emirate Airline, has announced a six-month employee bonus for employees after it made a $2.9bn profit in 2022-2023. Its total revenues also increased significantly over the past year.
In comparison, what is our national airline doing?
I hope that we will learn from the lessons and experiences of Dubai. There is no harm in copying successful experiences in all fields.
Let us open up to all countries of the world and benefit from their experiences and apply what we can appropriately.
I wish our decision-makers and officials work to ‘market’ Bahrain. We want the world to know about Bahrain as they know about Dubai and not as it is now – when we are called “Dubai’s neighbour”.
Zuhair A Tawfiqi
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