DUBAI, United Arab Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Emirates airline, Dubai Airports and the aviation sector as a whole contributed $26.7 billion to the Dubai economy in 2013, which was almost 27%* of Dubai’s GDP and supported a total of 416,500 jobs accounting for 21% of the emirates’ total employment. These figures were based on the latest report “Quantifying the Economic Impact of Aviation in Dubai” conducted by global research firm, Oxford Economics, as a follow-up to a 2011 study done by the same firm.
Core impact of aviation: It is estimated that the aviation sector, including the Emirates Group, Dubai Airports, and other aviation businesses such as airlines flying into Dubai, regulatory authorities and Dubai Duty Free, had a core impact of US$16.5 billion GVA in 2013. This includes direct, indirect and induced contributions and is equal to 16.5% of Dubai’s GDP, supporting over 259,000 Dubai based jobs.
Tourism benefits: Aviation has proved to be an indispensable catalyst for the growth Dubai’s tourism industry. Tourism and travel activities in 2013 had an economic impact of $10.2 billion GVA supporting a further 157,100 jobs. In 2013, Dubai welcomed nearly 10 million non-UAE visitors who spent $13 billion, accounting for around 1% of foreign visitor spend globally that year. The success of Dubai as a destination has been a public and private effort to invest in world-class aviation and tourism infrastructure to support the influx of visitors. The results have paid dividends and Dubai currently captures a 0.4% share of the world’s business and tourism traffic, double the share it had in 2000.
Connectivity: One of Dubai’s greatest assets is its enhanced connectivity. In 2013, Oxford estimated that passengers could connect from Dubai to 25 cities (or 81% of world cities) with populations of over 10 million people. Overall, Dubai had direct passenger flight connections to 149 cities with populations of over 1 million people, creating potential export markets of over 916 million people, or 13% of the world’s population. Cargo tonnage handled in Dubai between 1990-2013 has grown on average of 13.5% per year, compared to global average trade volumes of 5.6% per year.
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*Source: ME NewsWire