The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) has opened three offices in China to promote the city as a tourist destination. Seeking to capitalise on China's growing market of outbound tourists - the UN World Travel Organisation has reported it would be the world's biggest by 2020 - ADTA has set up shop in the capital Beijing and in the country's second and third largest cities, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
"A number of prevailing factors led us to prioritise China in our five-year overseas promotion strategy including the sheer size of the outbound Chinese market, the propensity of the Chinese tourist for culture and the substantial air links between Beijing and Abu Dhabi," Mubarak al Muhairi, the director general of ADTA, said yesterday. According to government figures, China is the largest market in Asia for outbound tourism, with Chinese citizens taking 41 million overseas trips last year, an 18.6 per cent rise from the previous year.
Meanwhile, Dubai reported it saw a jump in Asian tourists, with Dubai's department of tourism and commerce carketing reporting that the number of travellers from Asia increased by 17 per cent last year. Overall numbers of tourist arrivals from Asia in Dubai were approximately double the number of arrivals from Europe. China alone sent more than 92,000 visitors to Dubai last year, up from 68,500 a year earlier.
Mr Muhariri said he hoped to attract Chinese tourists in the run-up to 2020, the year when Abu Dhabi plans to have completed a series of projects that will appeal to tourists seeking cultural attractions, such as those on Saadiyat Island, which is set to become home to branches of the Guggenheim and Louvre museums. "We have to get into this vast market now, build destination awareness and prepare our audience well in advance of the opening in Abu Dhabi of some of the world's leading cultural institutions."
In addition to opening its own offices in China, the ADTA is also looking to create closer ties with the 930 travel agencies that operate in the country. "Through familiarisation trips and regular trade workshops and by working closely with the UAE embassy in China, we hope to facilitate the start of group leisure travel from China," said Ali al Hosani, the director of promotions at ADTA. ADTA said that China would be a main target of its efforts to familiarise foreign media with tourism opportunities in Abu Dhabi.
ADTA said it aimed to attract a total of 2.7 million annual hotel guests by 2012 - up from 1.45m last year, and that tourism offices abroad in key markets and the familiarisation programme would help to achieve that goal. China is the fifth country in ADTA's overseas office network, which already includes the UK, Germany, France and Australia. ADTA expects to open an office in Italy before the end of this year.
@email:abakr@thenational.ae