Dubai welcomed a record 15.92 million tourists in 2018, the tourism authority said Sunday, but the rise was marginal due to drops in visitors from the Gulf, India and Britain. The number of international visitors last year grew by just 0.8 percent, far below the five percent and six percent rises in 2016 and 2017 respectively, Dubai Tourism said.

But the emirate remains "focused on ensuring that (it) becomes the number one most visited city in the world", said Dubai Tourism chief Saeed al-Marri in a statement. Declines in the numbers of Gulf tourists, mainly from Oman and Qatar, and among Indian and British visitors were balanced out by upticks in the number of Chinese and Russians. The drop in Gulf visitors comes after the United Arab Emirates along with three other Arab countries in June 2017 boycotted GCC member Qatar.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019