Abu Dhabi sets target for 240,000 UK visitors in 2016

The Abu Dhabi stand at the World Travel Market at the ExCel Centre in London. Stephen Lock for the National

LONDON // Abu Dhabi wants to attract at least 240,000 guests from the UK next year, a TCA Abu Dhabi official said.

The UAE capital is on a tourism drive at this week’s World Travel Market exhibition in the UK, where it was named “destination of the year”. About £2.5 billion (Dh14.15bn) of global deals are expected to be struck at the event. A promotional push in the UK is expected to contribute a rising numbers of Britons visiting Abu Dhabi, according to Mubarak Al Nuaimi, the director of promotions and overseas offices at the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority.

Mr Al Nuaimi said the emirate is targeting 200,000 guests from the UK this year, and “20 per cent more” in 2016.

Next month’s opening of the Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal, and the arrival of the Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2016 are also expected to contribute to this trend, Mr Al Nuaimi said on the sidelines of the World Travel Market. He said TCA Abu Dhabi facilitated “more than 100 meetings” on the first day of exhibition.

The government body helps, for example, Abu Dhabi hotels looking to sell blocks of rooms to global tour operators.

“Before the end of the show we will definitely have agreements signed,” Mr Al Nuaimi said.

He was one of several tourism officials celebrating Abu Dhabi's win, for the second year running, of the city "destination of the year" in the UK Travel Agents Choice Awards. The winners of the awards, which are organised by Selling Travel magazine and based on votes by more than 1,000 UK travel agents, were announced online last month but presented at the World Travel Market.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways also received an award as the Middle East airline of choice.

Mr Al Nuaimi said the city award will help to keep Abu Dhabi “on the map”.

Mr Al Nuaimi added that tourist numbers to the UAE had remained strong despite the unrest and violence elsewhere in the region.

Abu Dhabi in June raised its annual visitor target by more than 11 per cent to 3.9 million, while Dubai has a high-profile and ambitious aim to attract 20 million tourists annually by 2020.

Caroline Bremner, the head of travel and tourism research at Euromonitor International, based in the UK, said unrest in the wider Middle East had not hit tourism to the UAE.

“You have so many global airlines bringing people in, and that all helps,” she said. “If you … provide the right level of service and you present an image of stability, then obviously you are going to be seen as a safe destination.” Abdulrahman Ghanem Almutaiwee, the UAE’s ambassador to the UK, said the country was right to press ahead with its tourism initiatives despite the regional problems.

“The region has always been going through this kind of turmoil. If we [were to] wait for this turmoil to settle and then start promoting our country, we would not reach this level of development,” he said. Separate stands geared towards boosting tourism in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah were on show at the World Travel Market. “This is the beauty of promoting our country,” said Mr ­Almutaiwee.

“We have the right as single emirates to promote ourselves in the way which we find more productive to our emirates and to the country as a whole. This kind of flexibility gives competition – healthy competition. And it gives us the variety of flavours of each emirate.”

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