The Dubai tourism authorities said on Wednesday that it signed a deal with China's ICT giant Huawei Consumer Business Group to position the Gulf Arab emirate as a travel destination for visitors from the Middle East, Africa and China.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed by Issam Kazim, the chief executive officer of Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing (DTCM), and Gene Jiao, president of Huawei Consumer Business Group Middle East and Africa, aims to create awareness about Dubai as an Arab and Emirati cultural heritage destination across the three source markets.
Huawei will share images, videos, events services and online booking schemes, according to the MoU.
The deal "will help us achieve that goal by increasing awareness of Dubai's key selling points including local culture and heritage, gastronomy, retail, entertainment and adventure across the Middle East, Africa and China travellers," Kazim said.
For Jiao, the partnership "will help redefine traveller experience in Dubai with cutting-edge technology and service excellence."
Through this collaboration, users will get access to Dubai's images from DTCM's photo bank as online themes and screen locks gallery on Huawei mobile devices.
Dubai, the largest city of the Gulf state United Arab Emirates (UAE) and known for its beach hotels, shopping malls and the world's tallest tower Burj Khalifa, has attracted 540,000 tourists from China in 2016, 20 percent more than a year before.
Since early 2017, Chinese tourists are eligible to receive a UAE tourist visa on arrival at the country's international airports.
In the first nine months of 2017, 573,000 Chinese visitors flocked to Dubai, representing a 49 percent increase year-on-year.
At the Dubai Airshow in November, Dubai's government-owned carrier Emirates Airline said it is keen to increase the number of Chinese destinations it serves in 2018 from the current five.
Earlier in the week, a report released by Canadian consultancy Colliers International said Chinese arrivals to Gulf Arab countries are expected to increase 21 percent to 2.5 million annually by 2021.
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