Off the wire
• Li arrives in Ireland for transit visit with visa waiver deal expected  • China, UAE oil firms sign 330 mln USD worth oilfield development project  • Feature: One Italian's China story  • Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, May 17  • AZ grab third place in final Dutch match round  • (Sports Focus) Liu Xiang completes emotional farewell with tears  • China, Vietnam conclude high-level border meeting  • DPR Korea held 1-1 in Vietnam friendly  • Bahrain summons Iranian envoy protesting against Khamenei statements  • Roundup: Mon Roi, Carol screened at Cannes for Palme d'Or  
You are here: 　 Home

Dubai Week in China a huge success: officials

Xinhua, May 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Senior officials from Dubai's tourism and finance industry hailed the recent Dubai Week in China event a success.

The show event, which kicked off on May 8, was attended by more than 15,000 visitors, including government officials and business people.

Issam Kazim, chief executive officer of the Dubai corporation for tourism and commerce marketing (DCTCM), said the feedback of the week-long tourism and culture promotion program was very good.

"China is a very important market for us. It is important for us to present the different sides of Dubai as a tourism hub whether as lifestyle, beach holiday, shopping or cultural destination," said Kazim.

"We cannot only showcase one aspect of Dubai to the Chinese people." In 2014, the number of Chinese tourists traveling to Dubai went up by 25 percent compared to that of the previous year.

The DCTCM aims to double the number of tourists to Dubai to 20 million per year, and Chinese visitors will play a major role in achieving these plans.

"Of the 20 offices we have around the world, four are in China: in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, all promoting Dubai as a tourism hub" said Kazim.

Representatives of the Dubai international financial center (DIFC), a government-run financial free zone, also agreed that the program was successful.

Arif Amiri, deputy chief executive officer of DIFC, told one of the sessions during the event that his organization can serve as a key gateway for Chinese companies to access markets in the Middle East and the wider region.

The DIFC where 488 authorized entities and two markets are regulated, is already home to branches of four leading Chinese lenders ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction and Bank of China. the center also aims to attract more banks from individual Chinese provinces and asset managers.

Other participating Dubai bodies were the organizing committee of the Dubai Expo 2020, state-owned Emirates Airline, the Jebel Ali Free Zone, state-owned hospitality group Jumeirah (which operated the world-famous Burj Al-Arab hotel), and Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority.

Earlier in the year, Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, a senior official with the Emirates Airline, told Xinhua that the biggest carrier in the Middle East is in negotiations with the Chinese government to expand its network to the world's most populous country.

As Chinese travelers prefer holiday destinations where Chinese food and Mandarin-speaking hotel staff are both available, Dubai's over 600 resorts have been constantly increasing the number of Chinese employees.

Luoluo Deng, Chinese sales manager at The H Hotel in Dubai, told Xinhua that Chinese guests have begun to discover her hotel, located beside the Dubai world trade center, "and we are keen on attracting more visitors from my country." Endit