Dubai, arguably Africans most loved tourist destination

The United Arab Emirates port city of Dubai is popular worldwide as a destination for leisure and business travels.

Whether you are looking for sun and sea, luxury, a cultural desert tour, shopping or a family-friendly getaway, Dubai has something for everyone.

The city has evolved over the years to become one of the world’s most prestigious and popular tourists attractions, enticing visitors from different sectors. And this goes for many African travellers who are choosing Dubai as their prime holiday destination.

David Basil Anthony is the CEO of TicketGhana.com. For him, Dubai has marketed itself well as a good destination and with support from their airlines emirates’.

He stresses “they have done a good job and Africans have gotten to the point they want to explore. As you know European countries and the Americas make it difficult visa restriction ways. In a nutshell Dubai makes it easier for one to come visa wise.” Anthony submits.

Travelling to Dubai is easy for Africans as they do not face the same hurdles often encountered with Intra-African travel. And this is thanks to a flexible and dynamic visa regime that allows visitors to stay for as long as 90 days with an option to extend.

There are two types of tourist visas, short term for 30 days at 54 US dollars single entry, which can be extended twice for 30 days each time, and long term for 90 days at 150 US dollars that can be extended twice for 30 days each time. Acquiring these visas has also been made easy for Africans through travel agencies.

So how can African countries emulate Dubai’s tourism model?

David Anthony shares his thoughts on this again. “We need to work on taxes to start with…If we work on taxes, build more attractions, cleanliness because one big problem we have I Africa is sanitation. These are basic things infrastructure, road networks that take you from one tourist site to another…the basic things that every country needs will just naturally have a good impact on our tourism. Because we have good sites that we probably don’t even have to start new sites.”