World’s leading strategic market researcher Euromonitor International expects the collective spending made by tourists in the UAE and across the globe to rise this year and return to pre-COVID levels by 2024.
The market researcher observes that COVID-19 and the subsequent travel restrictions resulted in a more than 50 percent decrease in spending by inbound tourists during 2020. The UAE, like any other major tourism hotspot on the globe, suffered a major drop in tourism revenue as the world came to a standstill.
Yet, Euromonitor remains optimistic and projects international travel to resume cautiously with recovery likely happening sooner, or by 2022 at the earliest as long as mass vaccinations and testing protocols positively support the travel across the globe.
“World inbound tourism spending collapsed by 57 percent in 2020, and our forecast expects it to rebound by 82 percent in 2021,” Ms. Caroline Bremner, Euromonitor International’s Head of Travel and Tourism Research opined.
The Middle East
In the Middle Eastern region, Saudi Arabia is expected to see its inbound tourism spending grow and touch $33.5 billion by 2025. One of the prime tourist hotspots in the region, the UAE will also witness an increase in tourism activity, with the collective spending made by inbound tourists projected to be more than $25.3 billion during the same period.
“In our most pessimistic scenario, spending growth is predicted to rise by 40 percent in 2021, leading to a more prolonged recovery timeline, returning to pre-crisis levels by 2024,” Ms. Bremner stated.
