DUBAI 12 April 2019: The UAE’s burgeoning tourism sector receives a peak in online searches every January, as potential holidaymakers in English and Spanish speaking countries look to escape the wintery blues with a jaunt to the Gulf.
New research from digital marketing suite, SEMrush, has found that the UAE’s temperature-perfect winters and outdoor events season are key consideration for online holiday seekers.
In January last year and during the same month in 2017, there were nearly one million English-language searches related to UAE tourism. Although the search volume dropped to just 600,000 this year as Brexit uncertainty impacts UK residents’ travel plans, the report also found that online searches peak again in July, with 2017 and 2018 showing around half a million global searches for UAE holidays in English.
The top five countries for English search traffic include the UK, USA, India, domestically in the UAE, and Australia. This was closely followed Canada, South Africa, Ireland, Nigeria and Malaysia.
Spanish represents the second largest language group globally searching online for ‘UAE tourism’. The top 10 countries searching UAE holidays in Spanish include: Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, USA, Venezuela, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Bolivia.
“With ongoing growth across the UAE’s travel and hospitality sector, the competition to attract visitors and guests will continue to be challenging as difficult global financial markets bear their teeth. This will require marketers to be even more creative and adaptable to global consumer trends,” said Adam Zeidan, SEMrush corporate communications manager for Mena region.
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has previously indicated that the direct con-tribution of travel and tourism to UAE GDP in 2017 was Dh69.1 billion (5.1 per cent of GDP). This was forecast to rise five per cent to Dh72.6 billion in 2018, largely because of strong economic activity generated by connected industries including hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation. The direct contribution of travel and tourism to the UAE GDP is expected to grow by 4.1 per cent per annum to Dh108.4 billion (4.9 per cent of GDP) by 2028.