Abu Dhabi will host the third Chinese Visitor Summit after Ramadan as the UAE attracts more tourists from the country.
Organised as a networking platform for travel industry professionals, the event is expected to bring 75 Chinese tour operators to meet local agencies for six days from August 23, split between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
The Chinese visitor market, which was dominated by group travel when the UAE became an approved destination in the country in 2009, is now expanding to business, family and independent travel, said Rob Nicholas, the managing director of Nicholas Publishing International. It is organising the forum along with Shanghai-based i2i Group.
High Way Travel and Tourism, a part of Bastaki International Group with offices in Dubai and Beijing, will handle 1,000 individual travellers to the UAE each month starting next month.
“These will be individuals having a customised itinerary, including more leisure time, [and they] tend to spend more,” Mr Nicholas said.
The tour operators will come from China’s second-tier hubs of Xian, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Jinan besides major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
In the first four months, 45,760 Chinese guests checked in to the capital, up by 232 per cent from same period last year, according to Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi). And they stayed for 1.8 nights, a 104 per cent increase year-on-year.
The Chinese cosmetics company Nu Skin was largely responsible for the spike, as 16,500 sales agents descended on the emirate in April for a mass junket.
“We are aware that we have a challenge in building the number of nights Chinese guests are staying with us, and we want that to grow,” said Sultan Al Dhaheri, the acting executive director for tourism at TCA Abu Dhabi.
Earlier this month, the Shanghai-based research group Hurun Report said Dubai was the third-most preferred luxury travel destination for wealthy Chinese visitors. The emirate received 272,496 Chinese travellers last year, up from 248,367 in the previous year.
“Chinese travellers are using the UAE as a stopover destination going onwards to Kenya, South Africa, Seychelles, Maldives and even European countries such as France, Italy and Greece,” Mr Nicholas said.
ssahoo@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @Ind_Insights
