Dubai plans to extend another 20,000 hotel rooms by next year

According to a leading tourism official, Dubai aims to add 20,000 rooms by 2016 as part of plans to nearly double its room inventory by 2020, in spite of a weakening global economy and a slowdown of tourists from countries such as Russia. It was revealed yesterday.

Dubai added about 7,000 rooms last year to reach roughly 90,000 rooms, is on track to reach up to 155,000 rooms by 2020 to cater to the proposed target of doubling tourist arrivals to about 20 million a year by 2020. Dubai witnssed 5.8 million tourists in the first six months of last year compared with more than 11 million for all of 2013.

According to Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing, the economic contribution of tourism, which is estimated at Dh100 billion, will treble by 2020.

DCTCM received more than 51 applications for three- and four-star hotels up to last November as Dubai offers incentives for developers to build such hotels as part of plans to become the No 1 family destination by 2020. Families usually opt for budget hotels.
Source: http://goo.gl/YfExH0