An independent view of Dubai's tourism market and airline travel today
Bookings to Dubai from London in Q4 2020 are currently 74.1% behind year on year, travel analytics firm ForwardKeys revealed to Arabian Business.
Dubai’s tourism industry, like many major cities around the world, has suffered from collapsed consumer demand, flight restrictions and international quarantine measures.
“It is difficult to predict when normality will return to the previously busy London-Dubai route. The UAE is not currently included in the UK government’s safe travel corridor and, therefore, travelers are expected to quarantine for 14 days on arrival,” said Olivier Ponti, VP of insights at ForwardKeys.
According to research firm Euromonitor International, the UK is an important source market for Dubai historically, ranking as the third biggest source market to Dubai in 2019.
“While Dubai has opened up to tourists, COVID-19 has severely impacted the UK’s economy,” said Rabia Yasmeen, senior analyst at Euromonitor.
“With Brexit coming up, the increased economic uncertainty in the UK has also impacted the British outbound market to long-haul destinations such as Dubai,” she added.
Hans-Peter Betz, director of the Dubai-headquartered the International Association of Hotel General Managers, confirmed that hotel occupancy is currently being driven by domestic demand. “Dubai's hospitality is driven by local demand at this point with weekends doing very well. The percentage of international tourists is still very small,” he said.
Dubai’s state-owned Emirates airline on Monday revealed that is has returned over AED5 billion ($1.4 billion) in Covid-19 related travel refunds to date.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Emirates laid on six daily A380 flights to London’s Heathrow and a further three a day to Gatwick. It had also just begun a double-daily 777-300ER service to Stansted.
As of September 8, a sizeable proportion of its A380 fleet remains grounded – only one A380 flight makes it to Heathrow, as well as several 777-300ERs.
Demand for the London-Dubai air route remains “tempered”, according to Saj Ahmed, founder of UK-based Strategic Aero Research.
“Amid a backdrop of ever-changing quarantine guidance, travelers are wary about making travel plans that could be halted almost without notice,” Ahmed said.
Source: Arabian Business
However, he noted that the UAE is far from alone in experiencing severely depleted tourism demand.
“Several major city pairs across the globe, operated by a slew of airlines, have all but collapsed in both demand and access as flight restrictions are in full force,” Ahmed said. “A good example of this is British Airways standing down its entire widebody fleet for services that would have connected New York/JFK several times a day.”
“A return to global pre-COVID travel demand levels, in terms of yield and profitability, could easily be five to ten years away. And that’s a bullish assessment,” he said.
The expert also noted that the increased take-up of remotely working software such as Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams would mean that companies now no longer see the benefit of expensive business flights.
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