Dubai Creek has been described as a natural saltwater creek (Photo- India Outbound)
The United Arab Emirates becomes the first major country to announce fully recovery of its tourism industry to the levels prevailing in 2019, before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic brought the entire travel industry around the world grinding to a halt.
The UAE says it reached the 2019 level in the first half of the current year. Vice President of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced that the tourism revenues in the first six months of 2022 exceeded EUR 5 billion, more than in the corresponding period of 2019. “The revenue of our tourism sector is more than 19 billion dirhams (EUR 5.15 billion) in the first half of this year and the UAE has been the fastest to overcome the effects of the pandemic,” Sheikh Mohammed said on his official Twitter account after a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The Vice President also explained that total hotel bookings in the country reached 12 million during the same period, with an estimated growth of 42 pc over the corresponding period in the previous year and he said he hoped for an “even stronger recovery in tourism with the upcoming winter season”, the best season for tourism in the UAE due to the moderate temperature of around 25°C, compared to more than 45°C in the summer.
“The UAE’s foreign trade “exceeded AED 1 trillion (EUR 271.1 billion), up from AED 840 billion (EUR 227.7 billion euros) before the pandemic, with economic growth of 22 pc during 2022,” said Sheikh Mohammed, who also holds the posts of Prime Minister and the Ruler of Dubai.
“Our indicators today are stronger than our indicators before the pandemic, our economic growth is faster and our tourism, trade and development sectors are larger than before the pandemic,” he stressed.
The UAE is one of the world’s largest oil exporters, but it is also the most modern in infrastructure among Arab countries and is a major tourist and business attraction in the Gulf area.
