Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) is on a promotional tour to cities across China this month to capitalise on the growing popularity of the emirate as a tourist destination.
Inbound visitor arrivals from China rose by 31 percent in 2016 compared to the previous year and have surged 48 percent in the first three months of this year.
China has now overtaken India as the largest overseas source market for international visitors into the emirate with close to 100,000 Chinese staying in the emirate’s 167 hotels and hotel apartments between January and March this year.
The number of guest nights has also climbed by 48 percent to 138,747 in the first quarter of this year.
TCA Abu Dhabi promoted the emirate during an initial four-city roadshow began on Thursday in Chengdu and stopped in Wuhan, Guangzhou before ending in Nanjing on Tuesday.
It was the first time that TCA Abu Dhabi has led a delegation to Wuhan, a city of more than 10 million people, and Nanjing, one of the largest cities in eastern China.
The roadshow, which was also be attended by Etihad Airways and hotels and tour operators, takes place as the emirate strives to reach its target of 600,000 Chinese visitors a year by 2021.
On May 10, TCA Abu Dhabi also attended the ITB China Exhibition 2017 in Shanghai, along with partners and stakeholders.
Mubarak Al Nuaimi, director promotions and overseas offices for TCA Abu Dhabi, said: “China has been identified as one of our priority markets offering enormous growth potential in the future. Each year, we are seeing impressive growth in the number of hotel guest arrivals and the first quarter of this year has been excellent, with close to 50 percent growth over the same period in 2016.
“We are trying to make the emirate as welcoming and easy to travel around as possible for our Chinese guests and will continue to support and implement new initiatives to make Abu Dhabi even more enticing.”
arabianbusiness