VISA cardholders spent $4.7 billion on their cards while visiting the UAE in 2012, a 17.1 per cent increase compared to the previous year.
The results, collated by company’s VisaVue Travel data service in its latest Tourism Outlook UAE report, also indicated that the total number of transactions increased by 20 per cent year on year, reinforcing UAE’s strong reputation as a shopping destination for international tourists. The top ten source markets – the UK, Russia, Saudi Arabia, US, China, Qatar, Angola, Kuwait, India and France – accounted for 62.6 per cent of total tourism spend.
The Visa Tourism Outlook UAE report was unveiled at the 2013 Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC). “As the world’s largest payment solutions provider, we are in a unique position to provide insight into where and how visitors are spending their money. Turning our transaction data into useful business information is one way Visa delivers value to businesses and countries where tourism are strong growth indicators – this has increased relevance to the UAE, where tourism contributes nearly 6.6 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product ,” said Marcello Baricordi, Visa’s general manager, UAE.
Categorising the spend on seasonal tourism flow, the Visa cardholders recorded the highest value of tourism receipts in January (up 36 per cent to $485.1 million), November (up 6.6 per cent to $479.3 million) and December (up 13.5 per cent to $463.2 million).
Outbound travel also rose significantly during 2012, with Visa cardholders from the UAE spending $2.5 billion internationally in 2012, a 12.2 per cent jump year on year. The top five tourism destinations where UAE Visa cardholders spent the most were the UK [up 16.7 per cent to $402.3 million], the US [up 13.6 per cent to $273.4 million], Germany [up 16.3 per cent to $138.4 million], France [up 11.7 per cent to $124.7 million] and Saudi Arabia [up 26.6 per cent to $120.4 million].
Visa has also unveiled its Global Travel Intentions Study 2013 which revealed that global cross-border tourism is thriving and global travellers intend to increase budgets for their next trip by an average of five per cent.