Skift Take
Much is riding on the success of the Dubai Exposition– not simply for the Emirati. The Exposition is certainly the largest tourism-oriented occasion because the start of the pandemic. Many lessons will be learned from how the city state manages the coming months.
Wouter Geerts
On October 1, the World Expo started in Dubai, in what is likely the largest tourism-oriented occasion because the start of the pandemic. The occasion, which originally was set to occur at the end of 2020, was delayed due to the Covid pandemic and will now range from October 1 till March 31, 2022.
World Expos are held every five years, and in terms of magnitude are compared to Olympic Games. The impact on host cities can be huge, particularly in regards to tourist, building and construction and real estate, and investments. It is forecasted that the Exposition can provide a $33 billion increase to UAE’s economy over twenty years, with $6 billion coming directly from spending on hotels and company services throughout the 6 months the Exposition is running.
However this was before Covid struck, which may have devalued some expectations. Nonetheless, the organizers are still aiming for 25 million visitors during the 6 month exhibit. In the Skift Healing Index: September 2021 Highlights report we evaluate the tourist efficiency and potential customers for Dubai. Below is a brief excerpt.
Dubai Hopes Exposition Will Rejuvenate Travel
The UAE has actually revealed terrific improvement over the last number of months in the Skift Healing Index, with travel efficiency hitting 77 percent of pre-pandemic levels in September, a jump of 8 percentage points compared to last month.
This improvement of travel’s efficiency goes hand-in-hand with a strong decline in Covid cases in the nation. Daily brand-new cases are presently at the lowest level given that August 2020, having shown a consistent downward trend since June. As of completion of September 2021, 82 percent of the population has actually been completely vaccinated, one of the highest rates internationally.
The question is of course what the coming months will bring. We have actually asked a variety of our data partners to offer forward looking information for the UAE, or Dubai specifically if available, to take a look at the strength of its travel market as it sets off on
an essential 6 months. According to information from revenue management system Duetto, Dubai hotels have actually seen a strong uptick in hotel bookings for the period of the Exposition, but just like search trends, this has only recently began to pick up. Due to unpredictability about border openings and travel restrictions, we have actually seen much shorter reservation windows throughout the pandemic, and this information verifies that this is still the case, even in the case of a major event like the Expo.
What is intriguing, however, is that this uptick in need is finally permitting hotels to increase their Average Daily Room Rates. Information from RateGain’s new Demand.AI platform shows that hotels have actually been able to increase prices significantly for the remainder of the year. While the average space rate was AED312 on the first day of October 2020, this was AED468 (+50 percent) on the same day in 2021. And prices for the rest of 2021 remain consistently over 50% higher than in 2020.
< img width="1024" height="635" src="https://skift.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8-1024x635.png" alt =""/ > In the full report we further analyse the efficiency of the vacation leasing and flight sections, using data from Beyond, Transparent, OAG, and Skyscanner.
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