Weak pound boosts UAE tourist flow to UK

The dwindling value of sterling pound against the UAE dirham has turned out to be an attractive proposition for visitors from the region.

Recently, the GBP fell almost 26 per cent against the UAE dirham – from 7.3 to 5.4 – giving more bargaining power to visitors and because of this, their spending in Britain is also increasing, said an official at the Visit Britain pavilion at Arabian Travel Market.

"In the times of crisis, it is the exchange rate that is pushing up the numbers. The weakening of pound against dirham coupled with several offers being made by hotels and airlines is attracting UAE tourists to the UK. The number of visitors from the UAE to the UK showed 31 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2008 and there's been a bit of a slowdown in the first quarter of 2009. However, the forward bookings for this summer are quite encouraging," Carol Maddison, Regional Marketing Manager, Visit Britain, told Emirates Business.

More than 187,000 tourists from the UAE visited the UK in 2007 and their spending was at £189m, while the number of visitors from the Middle East stood at 441,000 and their spending at £771m, according to the data compiled by Visit Britain. The UK is also upbeat on business tourists from the UAE as it registered over 48,000 in 2007 and expects this to rise this year.

"We are expecting more business tourists to the UK. After Ramadan, the number of business tourists is likely to go up. Particularly industry verticals such as electronics, oil and gas, we get more number of business visitors.

SVS Sastry, Trade and Investment Officer at British Embassy, Dubai, said: "Because of the ongoing economic crisis and job loss, people are very cautious. Spending of surplus amount has decreased considerably of late.

"However, from the first quarter onwards, I see a growing number of tourists from the UAE to the UK. The first day of ATM is also quite encouraging as we have found good response. Moreover, there's a good number of footfalls at this international exhibition."

Tourism sector in Britain is the fifth largest industry and plays a vital role in the growth of economy as it contributes £85bn to the country's GDP.

Accounting for 7.7 per cent of total jobs in the country, the UK tourism industry employs about 2.1m people.

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