Quick tourism facts from around the world

Quick tourism facts from around the world

Dubai saw tourism revenues fall 15 percent in the first quarter of the year. We check out some global tourism trends during the same period.

May 19, 2009 12:53 by Aarti Nagraj

According to data released by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), the emirate’s tourism industry saw combined revenue drop 15 percent in the first quarter of the year.

The number of guest nights at Dubai hotels fell 16.4 percent in the first three months to 3.87 million, and total hotel revenues fell 14.9 percent to $854.9 million (AED3.14 billion). Occupancy rates for hotels in Dubai fell to 73 percent in Q1, as compared to almost 90 percent last year.

However, the DTCM data showed that the total number of hotel guests, excluding hotel apartments, grew 3.7 percent to 1.62 million.

But it’s not just Dubai that is witnessing a slowdown in the tourism industry. Here’s a roundup of a few tourism numbers from across the world.

1. Economists at the Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Brazil earlier this month said that the threat of swine flu has already led to a 2 percent drop in global travel, and if the outbreak continues, the decrease could reach more than 7 percent. That would mean a loss in value of more than $2 trillion.

2. Turkish first quarter tourism revenues fell 11.2 percent as compared to the same period in 2008, falling to $2.47 billion, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute. The revenues consisted of around $1.8 billion from foreign visitors, and $676 million from Turks living abroad.

Last year, tourism revenues rose 18.5 percent to almost $22 billion, and contributed 3 percent of Turkey’s gross domestic product.

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Tags: decreasing, Dubai, Estonia, Financial Crisis, global, Hong Kong, hotels, revenues, slowing, tourism, Turkey, UK