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Organised by The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT – Abu Dhabi), the inaugural edition of the APAC Travel Marketplace concluded on October 16 at the ADNEC Centre Al Ain.
Featuring two days of networking, meetings, and engaging presentations, it welcomed 200 stakeholders from across the Asia-Pacific, and 63 local hotels, tour operators, and entertainment venues.
With the APAC region making up 25 per cent of visitors to the emirate, it remains the largest source market for Abu Dhabi tourism.
The event provided a vital opportunity for Abu Dhabi to showcase its full array of attractions and experiences and provide updates on its growth and development.
Abdulla Yousuf, Director of International Operations at DCT – Abu Dhabi, opened the event by revealing that Abu Dhabi is one of the fastest growing tourism destinations in the world. He stated that numbers of international hotel guests are growing by 27 per cent year-on-year.
He said: “Plane seats to Abu Dhabi are growing by 25 per cent each year. In 2023, we added an extra 3.7 million seats, and welcomed almost 24 million visitors from across the globe. I can confidently say that we are well on track to achieving our goal of attracting over 39 million by 2030, as detailed in Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Strategy 2030.”
One of the most important revelations of the event was that the summer is no longer viewed as the emirate’s ‘low season’.
Yousuf unveiled: “Abu Dhabi no longer has a tourism season. This summer our hotel occupancy was 78 per cent, with India remaining the leading source market. Our campaigns have successfully conveyed that there is so much to see and do in Abu Dhabi during the warmer months, and that it is definitely not too hot to visit even in the summer. To meet this rising demand, we now aim to increase hotel room numbers from 36,000 to 50,000 by 2030.”
The decision to host the event in Al Ain honours the city’s importance as the birthplace of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Bin Nayan, the Founding Father of the UAE.
Around 10 per cent of Abu Dhabi visitors currently venture out to Al Ain, and the city will play a central role in Experience Abu Dhabi’s future campaigns.
Yousuf explained: “Al Ain is a destination for adventure, culture, and nature and its history goes back more than 5,000 years. We are working with Al Ain stakeholders to uplift its visitor experience, and truly set it apart from Abu Dhabi. We are also focusing on promoting the beautiful landscapes of Al Dhafra. From the energy and the vibrancy of the capital to the nature and culture of Al Ain, we want people to realise that Abu Dhabi truly is a land of possibilities.”
He went on to confirm that the Saadiyat Cultural District – including the Zayed National Museum, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi – will be entirely completed by 2025. Immersive art space teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi is all set to open this month (November 2024).
Nikhil Jeet, DCT India Country Manager, said: “People queue up for hours and hours in Tokyo to experience teamLab, and we will soon have our very own here. Saadiyat Island is set to become the world’s leading cultural hotspot.”
The Experience Abu Dhabi Experts programme was another main focus of the event. Available digitally and in five languages – including Hindi, Mandarin, and Japanese – the programme is designed to help overseas travel representatives become certified experts in Abu Dhabi.
Increasing the length of time that visitors spend in the emirate is another focus of DCT – Abu Dhabi. While traditionally Abu Dhabi has been viewed as a place for a two-night stay that is combined with Dubai and other areas of the UAE, Yousuf revealed that the average length stay during summer 2024 was just over four nights.
He was also keen to stress that the APAC Travel Marketplace 2024 marked the first of a whole series of Abu Dhabi-based marketplaces targeted at different key markets.
India is the top source market for Abu Dhabi, followed by China, UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia. The USA, Italy and France are also within the top 10 markets, while visitors from Korea and Japan are on the rise.
“Three years ago, we were focused on only 11 source markets. Today, we are engaged in more than 44, and this diversification will be key to supporting our sustainable growth between now and all the way to 2030,” said Yousuf.
“Moving forward, we plan to bring two to three marketplaces to Abu Dhabi per year. Hosting them locally makes it easier for our stakeholders to attend, and it also allows our overseas partners to experience the beauty of the emirate first hand. My team members are already working hard on planning events for our other key regions.”
Finally, it was noted that celebrity campaigns continue to prove effective at drawing in visitors from the APAC region.
“Earlier this summer, we featured Chinese actress Liu Yifei and Bollywood icon Ranveer Singh in our campaigns, and these partnerships definitely contributed to our strong summer performance. We are about to launch another collaboration in London with some Hollywood stars, too,” revealed Yousuf.
“We are always being approached by celebrities who want to partner with us, but we only work with public figures who genuinely care about Abu Dhabi as a destination.”
* Find The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi on stand S10-215 with a host of hotels, DMCs and attractions
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