Saudi spend highest in UAE
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Recent research from Visa reported that Sa
udi Arabia is the fastest-growing GCC country when it comes to Visa account holders spend in the UAE. The latest ‘Tourism Outlook: UAE’ report that uses VisaVue Travel data compares tourism receipts from across the UAE in 2010 and 2011.
This year’s report highlights that Saudi Arabia’s spending shot up 73.8%, with a total 1.1 million transactions made on Visa debit and Visa credit cards in the UAE during 2011, with only Angola recording a higher growth rate internationally (89.1%). This growth resulted in a total spend of US$326.3 million, making visitors from the Kingdom the fourth biggest spenders, just behind the UK, Russia and the US.
Saudi Arabian visitors to the UAE spent the most on ‘accommodation’ (up 80.1% to US$127 million), followed by expenditure in the ‘other retail’ category (up 62.6% to US$94.1 million), and ‘other travel and entertainment’, which was up a staggering 90.5% to US$21.8 million.
