Forecasts predict that UAE Travel & Tourism will grow inbound visitor exports 7.2 per cent annually until 2015.

Today, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) presented at the Dubai Cityscape Conference, the results of its special UAE forecast update, produced by Oxford Economic Forecasting (OEF), to reassess the impact of new Travel & Tourism products/resorts being developed in the UAE, which are expected to transform the country's Travel & Tourism economy.

The research contained new economic projections for the growth of Travel & Tourism in the UAE and provided a new perspective on what the recent investment in the various mega-projects including the Palms, the Waterfront, the Marina, Dubailand and Festival City land are likely to produce.

In the UAE, WTTC is forecasting:

• Demand: Encompassing all components of Travel & Tourism consumption, investment, government spending and exports to grow 2.1 per cent (real terms) and total AED74.7 billion (US$ 20.3 billion) in 2005.  The ten-year annualized growth (2006-2015) forecast is now posted at 3.2 per cent per annum.
• Visitor Exports: Spending by inbound international visitors is expected to total AED6.4 billion (US$1.8 billion) in 2005, representing 2.2 per cent of total exports. Over the next decade, this result is expected to grow by 7.2 per cent to AED15.8 billion (US$4.3 billion). 
•  Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Travel & Tourism's contribution to the UAE's economy is illustrated by the direct industry impact of 1.2 per cent of total GDP and the combined direct and indirect impact of the Travel & Tourism economy, which is expected to total 11.6 per cent in 2005.
• Employment: The UAE Travel & Tourism industry is expected to account for 23,900 jobs or 1.6 per cent of total employment in 2005.  The broader perspective of the Travel & Tourism economy (direct and indirect), which includes the spillover employment associated with industry capital investment and government spending, is expected to account for 174,500 jobs dependent on Travel & Tourism or 11.8 per cent of total employment.

Speaking at the Cityscape Conference in Dubai, WTTC Vice President, Ufi Ibrahim said, "Normally our future forecasts are based on historical performance, adjusted by various external factors such as origination market economic outlook and general macroeconomic trends that usually impact Travel & Tourism spending.  In the case of the UAE, the massive reorientation of the economy and launch of many new Travel & Tourism projects within a short period of time required that we do some extra analysis to better forecast the potential impact of these events."

WTTC has revised its UAE capital investment forecast in order to make it more responsive to the ongoing transformation of the tourist industry in the UAE, in particular to the spectacular development of hotel infrastructure. This is having a direct impact on investment in the sector, and will make the destination able to accommodate a considerably larger number of visitor arrivals.  The re-forecast also takes into consideration the latest data on visitor spending which is suggesting a lower base than previously thought.  It is this later fact that hides the true nature of significant growing visitor arrivals in the UAE.

In the revised UAE forecast, the implied value for the number of tourist arrivals by 2015 is 14.0 million, compared to 10.5 million previously forecast.  This means nearly a two-fold increase in visitors over the next five years. However, the new forecast is still significantly below the current government target of 15 million visitors by the end of the decade.

Regarding international visitor spending, there is significant downward revision of the 2004 estimate, due to the release of data from the World Tourism Organization for that year. This means a drop in levels relative to the previous forecast (also affecting T&T GDP). However, WTTC/OEF have revised upward the trend growth rate of total spending over the forecast period to reflect a faster increase in arrivals. Spending per visitor in dollar terms is assumed to remain roughly the same.