Have you added Dubai to your holiday getaway bucketlist?
If you haven’t, you should.

According to KPMG’s Dubai hospitality report, the UAE registered the highest occupancy rate in the Gulf last year. Dubai’s occupancy rates, in particular, performed similarly to cities like Instanbul (75% occ. rate), New York (74% occ.rate), and Paris (73% occ. rate), climbing to 72.5% in November 2022 from 64.7% in November 2021.

The report went on to declare that “the UAE now hosts one of the richest hospitality markets in the world with an expected 25% growth in the industry by 2030”. This growth is a result of the city’s positioning on the global stage as a thriving, safe environment for business travelers, tourists, and residents as well as a main destination for global events, great culinary experiences, and exploration. It goes without saying that investments to expand capacity is an essential factor too as the UAE hospitality sector has seen investments of around USD $32Bn thus far in an effort to acquire 48K more hotel rooms, bringing the total number of rooms to 200K. This ties perfectly into one of the main goals laid out in the UAE’s 2031 Tourism strategy: to attract 40M new visitors to the city of gold by 2031.

Based on its performance last year, Dubai’s International Airport was deemed the busiest airport worldwide, having received over 14M international visitors, a 97% increase YoY from the 7.28M tourist arrivals registered in 2021. A press release by the Dubai Media Office further highlighted that this achievement feeds directly into the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33), which aims to double the size of the emirate’s economy by 2033. Last year alone, Dubai’s tourism sector contributed USD $29.4Bn to the city’s economy, and the goal by 2031 is to increase the sector’s contribution to GDP to AED 450Bn.

Did you know? In 2022, Dubai was selected as one of 20 destinations globally under Airbnb’s Live and Work Anywhere initiative to identify the world’s most remote worker-friendly destinations.

From visitors’ point of view, KPMG surveys have shown that 92% of consumers would plan to stay in a hotel in Dubai again in the next year and 92% of residents are satisfied with their stay experience from over the last 12 months, indicating a 5% increase in customer satisfaction compared to 2021. This positive sentiment is further validated in TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Awards which, based on the reviews of millions of travelers, ranked Dubai as the world’s best destination for holidaymakers for the second year in a row, followed by Bali and London.