A numbers game

This month, I was surprised to find out that Dubailand's visitor target was 15 million tourists by 2010, to coincide with the launch of Phase 1 of the development on December 10, 2010.

Despite much ringing around and an almost daily chasing of the Dubailand PR team, I am disappointed to say that I have been unable to get further clarification on the figure.

How the target has been set and how it has been defined is a mystery. Is the target for 15 milion distinct visitors throughout 2010? If so, this is not just ambitious, it's aggressive, according to some attractions industry experts I have spoken to. One even said that it was widely acknowledged that this target was unrealistic.

Or is the target for 15 million visits during 2010? This would include repeat visitations from residents to developments like Dubai Outlet Mall, for example, and is therefore much more achievable.

In fact the same person to say that 15 million tourists would be unrealistic, said Dubailand could "easily" record 15 million visits if it counted visits to its mall developments.

Some of the developers of individual attractions set to open in 2010 - such as Aqua Dunya Theme Park and Restless Planet - said they were on track to launch by the Phase 1 deadline of December that year, but would not comment on how many visitors their park was expected to attract.

They were, however, confident that with infrastructure now starting to come on line and an integrated marketing strategy packaging Dubailand as a destination, 15 million tourists would be achievable within the next two years.

To obtain a better understanding of the target, I contacted Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) to find out the official tourism targets for Dubai.

DTCM has set a target of 10 million tourists by 2010 and what it refers to as an "ambitious" target of 15 million visitors by 2015.

There is obviously quite a discrepancy between this figure and the Dubailand target, however, the DTCM declined to comment on this.

Likewise, the DTCM would not provide a figure on how many tourists currently visit Dubai each year, though media reports suggest it is around six million.

The lack of transparency of these targets is frustrating for leisure professionals working in Dubai's developing attractions industry.

In order to work towards such huge growth, developers and operators alike need to understand the targets set and be aware of how their particular project will contribute to that.

It is only by working together with a unified outlook and a shared goal that we will be able to make these targets realistic. The question now is: when will people start to share the information needed to make this possible?

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