Dubai continues to increase in popularity as a destination, reaching the seventh most popular destination in the world in 2013, according to MasterCard's third annual Global Destination Cities Index.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been advancing in its position consistently, ranking ninth and eighth in the previous two years, respectively.
Dubai made seventh place on the list by looking at inbound international visitors in 2013, causing it to outrank other growing cities, such as Hong Kong, Barcelona, Milan and Rome.
The city showed the strongest growth rate, along with Bangkok, growing 10.9 percent. The number of overnight visitors expected this year is 9.89 million. The spending is the city resulting from those international overnight visitors is an estimated $10.4 billion.
According to the index, if all of the top 10 destinations continue their growth at the same rate, Dubai will pass Singapore and New York in 2016 and 2017 in terms of international visitors.
The main origin cities from which visitors depart to go to Dubai are London, Kuwait, Paris, Frankfurt and Doha. All of these numbers are expected to show growth.
"While the Middle East and Africa's top ten cities line-up is exactly the same as in 2012, there is a striking difference in how far Dubai is ahead of other cities," Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, the global economic advisor for MasterCard and the author of the report, said to BreakingTravelNews.com. "It's international arrival number is almost twice that of Riyadh in second rank, and about four times as high as the third-ranked Johannesburg."
Dubai also ranked sixth among the global top 20 in regard to growth rates of international visitor arrivals between 2009 and 2013, with a growth of 96.8 percent during this period. Within the Middle East, Dubai ranks first.
Visitors from the U.S. are expected to spend $2.8 billion in Dubai, reflecting an attraction to more affluent travelers.
"The inauguration of the index in 2011 has helped us record Dubai's remarkable growth story, and the Index has proven to be a trusted barometer of the market's performance in the global landscape," Raghu Malhotra, the division president of MasterCard in the Middle East and North Africa, said. "Home to the world's second busiest airport, Dubai has gone from strength to strength, and continues to develop its offerings as it plans to draw even more visitors in the coming years."
The MasterCard Index of Global Destination Cities ranks cities based on the number of total international visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by the visitors.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
