The number of Chinese tourists staying in the hotels of Abu Dhabi increased by 10.7 percent in January from the same month last year, said Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism on Saturday.
Hotels in the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) biggest emirate have registered a total of 437,228 visitors in January, an increase of 7.4 percent compared with the same month last year, said the department in an emailed statement.
"Multiple countries provided double-digit year-on-year growth in January, notably China (up 10.7 percent), Britain (up 19.1 percent), Saudi Arabia (up 15.4 percent) and the United States (up 36.1 percent)," said the statement.
The surge was due to the warm climate and the opening of the first overseas branch of the French Louvre Museum in the Gulf country last November, it added.
The tourism body said the increase in Chinese tourists, which reached more than 35,000 in January, sustained a remarkable growth momentum in 2017 when the number rose by 61 percent to a total of 374,000 people.
China has become the largest source country of tourists for the UAE, the statement noted.
"Our Tier One markets China, India, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the United States are performing particularly well. All of those countries have recorded more than 10 percent growth in January," said Saif Saeed Ghobash, director general of Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism.
"We are confident to bring the number of tourists to 8.5 million people by 2021," Ghobash added.
