Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) wants to grow conference and corporate visitors from India after achieving record tourist arrivals last year.
The emirate received 3.49 million guests last year, 400,000 more than it had expected.
Yesterday the agency revised visitor targets for its 10 global offices, including India.
The focus this year is on India, the Arabian Gulf and China, said Mubarak Al Nuaimi, the director of promotions and overseas offices at TCA Abu Dhabi.
The agency is looking to grow the India market by 20 per cent this year, which provided 231,702 guests last year. It is also bidding to increase the Gulf market, which saw 240,478 guests last year, by 30 per cent.
The fastest growing source market, China, which saw 120,350 guests last year, is expected to provide a 40 per cent increase in visitor numbers.
TCA Abu Dhabi’s India office is expected to send at least 4,000 travellers under the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (Mice) segment to the emirate this year.
“India is a mature market, we have several flights between Abu Dhabi and India,” Mr Al Nuaimi said. “The numbers are growing, and if we can attract only 2 per cent of its total outbound market, it is huge.” India agreed last year to allocate 50,000 seats a week each way between Abu Dhabi and India this year, up from 13,300 last year.
Also, as part of its expansion plans, Etihad Airways this week launched daily flights to Kolkata, in eastern India, wth 130 seats a day each way.
That would bring it close to the seat allocation between Dubai and India. In February last year, India raised the number of seats to Dubai by 20 per cent.
The increases are scheduled to come into effect in phases by April.
In February last year, there were 55,000 weekly seats each way between Dubai and India.
Most of the overseas markets showed a dip in the average length of stay in Abu Dhabi last year, which touched 2.99 nights from 3.13 nights in 2013.
“We need to create more awareness about our attractions, and our hotels need to come up with more packages,” Mr Al Nuaimi said. “Our target is five nights’ stay.”
TCA Abu Dhabi also opened an office in Johannesburg in South Africa yesterday, its eleventh overseas office.
Last year, 16,000 tourists from South Africa visited Abu Dhabi, up 25 per cent from a year ago. Meanwhile, Etihad and South African Airways will each operate a daily flight between the African city and the emirate, which is expected to boost tourist arrivals.
The number of guests from Germany rose 15 per cent to 138,604 last year. The number of Swiss and Austrian guests also increased.
The tourism agency will also seek to tap into the emerging markets from Armenia, Georgia as Russia and Ukraine are hit by falling oil prices and political crisis.
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