How Dubai’s tourism industry rebounded from the pandemic

Angel Tesorero | Senior Reporter

Decisive decision-making, careful planning based on research and methodical data, stringent safety protocols, and cooperation between private and public sectors. These were the elements that helped Dubai’s tourism industry move out of the doldrums brought about by the global health pandemic.

In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, Helal Saeed Al Marri, Director General of Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), said Dubai’s hospitality and tourism sector rebounded relatively fast, compared with other global markets. In the early stages of the pandemic last year, Dubai was one of the first places to impose restrictions. After implementing strict measures, the city took a crucial decision to gradually reopen by mid-2020, becoming one of the first cities to welcome back international travellers.

“The city has shown remarkable resilience in dealing with the pandemic,” said Dubai’s tourism chief, adding: “We thank the frontliners who ensure our safety and we thank His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for his support and decisive decision-making in keeping the population safe and reopening the economy. The residents also took it upon themselves to be responsible during COVID-19 and this has allowed Dubai to come out of the pandemic in a very strong position.”

Action at the right time

Al Marri said: “The decisive action to reopen the economy was taken at the right time and Dubai has been very successful in the last 12 months. The tourism sector shut down, like any other, back in April last year. But from May (2020), we opened gradually, using all real data available to us to make the decision. Dubai opened its economy sector by sector, with strict precautions in place at each stage. This has enabled our travel and tourism industry to gradually recover and allowed the city to open to both domestic and international travels.”

“The first thing we did was to communicate with the tourism industry stakeholders in Dubai on a regular basis. At the onset of recovery, we held online workshops every couple of weeks, to make sure everyone worked hand and hand on the road to recovery,” he added.

Almarri noted: “Hotels played a major role in providing the much-needed accommodation for both quarantine and isolation and the partnership between health care and hospitality worked extremely well. The hospitality sector stepped forward to volunteer and worked with the government to make the recovery plan work.”

Step by step recovery

The global pandemic stopped the tourism industry in its tracks in the first quarter of 2020 as borders across the world were shut to slow the spread of the coronavirus. By May last year, Dubai was already one of the first cities to reopen. Al Marri explained: “First, we focused on domestic tourism. Each hotel was visited daily by inspectors to make sure all precautionary measures were in place.”

“We started gradually and when things worked well, we then planned to open to international tourism by July. The tourists coming in were required to present a negative PCR test and we found that the market began coming back,” he added.

Close monitoring of the volatile situation was important every step of the way. Al Marri said: “We tracked the data to see which countries the UAE would reopen for inbound tourists and which countries would remain shut, depending on the situation of the pandemic in those countries.”

Break-even

According to the Dubai tourism chief, the city’s hospitality sector rebounded relatively fast. Al Marri noted: “From the domestic tourism side, you’d find beach properties at 80 to 90 per cent occupancy, especially on weekends. You’d also find that overall, domestic and national tourism allowed hotels to break even, which was very important to the sector.”

Al Marri, however, raised caution on the number of tourists coming in. He said: “When we look at numbers, many people had slight misconception. We registered 1.7 million tourists coming in from July to December (2020). Even in December, we had half a million incoming guests. But this was only about one-third of previous years. So when people talked about Dubai being full — Dubai definitely was not full — our capacity would be three times what you saw last year, if we take 2019 figures.”

Forefront of global tourism

A year after reopening to international travellers, Dubai has been at the forefront of global tourism recovery. According to DTCM, the city has welcomed 3.7 million international overnight visitors from July 2020 to May 2021. The overall hotel occupancy during the 11-month period was 58 per cent and there was a 106 per cent rise in domestic hotel bookings.

“The positive performance reinforces the leading role Dubai is playing in global tourism recovery, underscoring the city’s enduring appeal as a must-visit destination and reaffirming its commitment to ensuring the health and safety of all residents and visitors,” noted DTCM.

Dubai received more than 1.7 million visitors between July and December 2020 from markets that were open, and an additional 2 million visitors in the first five months of 2021. Visitors came from feeder and emerging markets, including CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries like Kazakhstan and Ukraine as well as East African markets Ethiopia and Sudan, that have all exhibited strong growth potential to be among the top 15 source markets for Dubai since it reopened its doors to global travellers.

Al Marri observed: “The series of swift strategic measures taken by Dubai’s leadership enabled the city to demonstrate a high level of resilience, foresight and agility in managing the pandemic and eventually take the lead in the restart of international tourism.”

Remote work from Dubai

On another note, Al Marri said it’s important to observe that Dubai also opened its doors to remote workers from around the world. “The scheme allowed people working in other countries to choose Dubai as a place for their remote work. The scheme was very successful and many people extended their stay in the city. They stayed from one to five months in Dubai and this was of course a big boost to the hospitality industry and economy as a whole,” he explained.

Al Marri added: “More people will continue to live and work in Dubai, especially with the recent announcement of Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan that focuses on enhancing people’s happiness and quality of life and reinforcing Dubai as a global destination.”

Continuous marketing

Dubai also did not stop marketing itself to the world, added Al Marri. “Early in the pandemic, we focused on marketing in line with World Health Organisation protocols. Then we talked to people and the campaign engaged with advocates around the world that allowed us to keep in touch with the tourists to keep Dubai in mind,” he explained.

Al Marri continued: “As we move through the pandemic, some countries started to reopen and we worked through the second phase of the campaign called ‘Ready When You Are’. This was anchored on the concept that we are opening and when tourists are ready, they are welcome to come back. The soft campaign had a great deal of empathy towards the situation in various countries.”

“After that, the focus was on countries that were already open and we did the usual campaign to ensure Dubai was ranked on top. Vaccinations also helped drive the recovery of Dubai tourism. The hospitality sector embraced it and was in the forefront of the vaccination campaign,” he added.

Moving forward

Al Marri said the last 12 months have proven the effectiveness of the measures Dubai put in place to engage tourists and the reaction was very positive. He added: “We see the demand increasing this year as we go forward, not only because Dubai has a tremendous amount to offer, but we also have later this year Expo 2020 Dubai and the UAE’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. From every country that we target, Dubai has remained in the top 3 destinations that people are looking forward to visit. We just need to continue with this momentum and engage with the world in creating routes to each country to allow people to travel again.”