The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) tourism industry has benefitted immensely from the civil unrest in 2011 in a number of other Arab countries, and the UAE's largest sheikhdoms' Dubai and Abu Dhabi continue to attract global hospitality firms on a large scale.

According to the Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), the Dubai government's promotional arm for the hospitality sector, Dubai's tourism industry, generated 16 billion Dirham (4.36 billion U.S. dollars) revenues last year, a 20 percent increase over 2010, Gulf News reported Thursday.

Earlier in the year, the Dubai International Airport's CEO Paul Griffith said that "the airport hosted in 2011 for the first time more than 50 million passengers, an eight percent surge compared to 2010."

HUB AND DESTINATION

Mohamed Al Muhairi, head of Overseas Promotions and Inward Missions at DTC, said that 80 percent of passengers using the Dubai airport are transit passengers. The remaining 20 percent, which stays in Dubai for tourism or business, filled the 587 hotels in Dubai.

They reported 9.3 million guests for last year (up 10 percent year-on-year) and an average occupancy rate of 74 percent. With tourists rushing to "fly-buy-Dubai," as the sheikhdom is nicknamed, hotel room rates edged up by 30 percent, according to the report.

The UAE and Qatar are only Arab nations which were not hit by violent demonstrations or civil unrest during the turmoil which toppled four regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Consequently, the Gulf state UAE became a beneficiary, as it built up the Middle East's most advanced hospitality infrastructure during the last decade.

Leading brands like Accor, Hilton or Moevenpick, albeit being present on a large scale in the UAE, expand their hotel portfolio in the coming years. The Hilton Group will launch in 2013 the UAE' s first Waldorf Astoria hotel on the man-made Palm Jumeirah island.

HOTEL CONSTRUCTION BOOM

Serge Zaloof, hotel manager of the Atlantis Hotel Dubai, told Xinhua that "last December we welcomed 17 percent more guests on a year-on-year basis. 2011 has really been an excellent breakthrough and we are quite optimistic for the ongoing season." The emirate hosts a total of 81 five-star hotels, with 15 more being under construction.

The tourist rush also applies to Abu Dhabi, which is the UAE's capital and at the same time the largest emirate of the Gulf state. Because the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain had to cancel the annual Formula One Grand Prix in Manama due to civil unrest, Abu Dhabi hosted in November 2011 the only Middle East's Formula One motor race on the Yas island circuit.

In addition, Abu Dhabi's state-owned carrier Etihad Airways reached for the first time break even in 2011 since its foundation in 2003.

In 2011, Abu Dhabi attracted some 2.1 million tourists, a 22 percent increase over 2010, according to the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. The UAE capital, which is located an hour drive west of Dubai, benefitted from a 15 percent rise in guests from China and India.