Airline executives and hospitality executives said Monday that they expect Chinese inbound tourism to the Middle East to continue to boom following the lifting of visa restrictions by several Arab states.
They made the remarks at the 24th edition of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) fair and exhibition.
Briefing the media at a press conference, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al-Baker praised the visa-on-arrival scheme for Chinese travelers the Gulf Arab states implemented in September last year.
"The removal of pre-visa requirements has triggered an increase of Chinese travelers to Qatar and this is only the beginning," said Al-Baker.
Qatar Airways flies to six cities in China. Elie Milky, vice president for business development in the Middle East at American-Belgian hotel brand Carlson Rezidor told Xinhua he was also upbeat about Chinese travelers to the Gulf Arab region.
"We run in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) nine hotels and we will open another 14 resorts by 2019. This is mainly because of the fast growing number of guests from Asia, China in particular and all of our hotels in the Middle East employ Mandarin-speaking staff."
Earlier in the day, Dubai Tourism, the biggest government-controlled hospitality group in the UAE said the emirate saw 4.57 million travellers in the first three months of this year, an 11 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2016.
"Among Dubai's top 20 source markets for inbound tourism, China continued to top the growth trajectory charts with unparalleled 64 percent increase over the first quarter in 2016, delivering 230,000 tourists," Dubai Tourism said.
The UAE, to which Dubai belongs, implemented a visa on arrival scheme for Chinese nationals at the end of last year.
Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General of Dubai Tourism, said at the ATM "China's strong growth in number of tourists in response to our initiatives are a clear reflection of the importance of such measures as facilitators of tourism sector growth."
Thierry Antinori, the Chief Commercial Officer of Dubai's government carrier Emirates Airline said the carrier launched Chinese cities of Yinchuan and Zhengzhou as its fourth and fifth destinations in China in May last year.
He said the service is maturing and the UAE's relaxed visa policy for Chinese travelers play all together for more growth.
"The number of visitors from China to Dubai in 2016 stood at 540,000, up 20 percent from a year earlier,"Cong Hongbin, the managing director of invest Dubai of Falcon and Associates, said "Dubai-China relations are booming, and we see room for potential in bilateral exchange of human capital and intelligence," the director said.
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