Recently, I saw a statistic that gave me a very pleasant surprise. As of January 2018, only 8.7 percent of the Chinese population hold passports. Yet Chinese tourists are already the world’s biggest spenders!

It’s no wonder tourism boards around the world are thinking hard about how to make their respective countries or cities the destination of choice to Chinese tourists. The city of Dubai seems to be doing particularly well in this respect. It has announced partnerships with Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and Ctrip to push information digitally to Chinese tourists. Dubai is also one of the first cities to participate in WeChat’s CityExperience programme.

All these efforts are seeing results. According to Dubai Tourism, Chinese visitors to Dubai have increased by 110 percent. They stay an average of nine days and most choose to visit in January. Of the total number of Chinese tourists to the UAE, Dubai takes the lion’s share at 91 percent.

Dubai, for me, is first a business city and then a tourist attraction. But I am now tempted to visit the city for leisure. What is it that makes tourists want to stay for nine days?

Well, for starters, perhaps a stop at one of the biggest shopping malls in the world? 😊

Angeline Tong is an architect of narratives and Chief Curator at HOL, an experience strategy and curation consultancy. Angeline has a Master of Education (Human Development & Psychology) from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies from Harvard University. She currently resides in Singapore.

To contact Angeline, email atong@hol.sg