UAE is ‘best Arab country’ in Travel Tourism Competitive Index, 20th worldwide

Eye of Dubai, the premier tourism and investment guidebook and online portal for Dubai residents and visitors, has announced that it will intensify its strategy to boost travel and tourism in the UAE to leverage the favourable results of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) first annual Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which ranked the UAE as one of the top 20 performers among a pool of 124 countries.

The UAE outranked its counterparts in the Arab World by securing the 18th place overall in the coveted global list, according to the latest report released by market intelligence firm Madar Research.

Among the three sub-indexes that determined the final rankings, the UAE performed best in the ‘Human, Cultural and Natural Resources’ sub-index and third in the world in the indicator measuring ‘national perception of tourism’. The UAE was also highly ranked in ‘safety and security’, garnering tenth place in the world, deeming the UAE safer than the United Kingdom at 44, and the 45th-placed U.S.A.

According to the WEF report containing the TTCI, the travel and tourism sector in 2006 accounted for 8.2% of employment and 10.3% of GDP worldwide, triggered largely by the boom in international travel, which grew an average of 6.5% annually over the last 55 years. With its location at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the UAE has been making huge infrastructure investments to optimise the economic potential of this strategic advantage.

The new index measured government policies and other factors that attract business investments to the travel and tourism sector of some 124 global economies, including nine in the MENA region. The TTCI used statistical and survey data relevant to 13 different indicators organised into three sub-indexes, which are Regulatory Framework; Business Environment and Infrastructure; and Human, Cultural and Natural Resources.