“One stay bought, one free”: despite giant promotions, tourists are still avoiding Dubai
STORY - Tourism accounts for 20% of the emirate's economy. Professionals in the sector are increasing their efforts to attract new visitors as the high season approaches.
On the beach, a hundred sky blue deckchairs are lined up in a row… empty. Further on, a couple sitting on two giant buoys have the pool to themselves. At the Atlantis hotel in Dubai, a sort of palace of a thousand and one nights with 1,500 rooms and somewhat Soviet architecture, the damage from the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is obvious at the beginning of October.
Tourists are rare. Which gives this massive building at the end of the Palm peninsula the look of an immense ghost mansion. The tourism sector, long a driving force behind Dubai's growth (20 million tourists in 2025, a record) is in the doldrums.
From January to August, the number of visitors fell 44% year-on-year, falling to 7 million, according to figures from the tourism ministry. “The war hurt us a lot,” confirms Ali*, from the cabin of the Monorail, a sort of tram that flies over Atlantis and serves the Palm. This guide, who is accompanying a handful of Ecuadorian tourists this morning, has seen his activity drop drastically since February 28.
Machine-translated from French
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Only Le Figaro reports this story so far. We show it as a single source until another newsroom confirms it.
- Le Figaro25 Oct, 09:57
| Publisher Le Figaro (established tier) | +76 |
| Checkable figures cited | +3 |
| Detailed summary | +2 |
| Total | 81 |
Method: reports are grouped by the words of their headline and summary; each newsroom counts once; figures are read from the reports as published. Nothing here is written by an AI.