Chinese delegation meets DTCM officials

Mr. Hamad bin Mejren, DTCM Executive Director Business Tourism, gave a presentation about Dubai's tourism industry and the role and activities of the DTCM in promoting and marketing the emirate as a year-round business and leisure destination.

He said there has been a substantial increase in the number of Chinese visitors to Dubai due to the excellent tourist facilities in the emirate and the air connectivity between Dubai and Chinese cities, served among others by direct flights by Emirates Airlines.

He briefed the delegation about the infrastructure in place and being developed for sports, including the Dubai Sports City and Dubailand projects.

Mr. bin Mejren said Dubai, given its excellent sporting facilities, air connectivity and tourism infrastructure, has remained the sporting capital of the Middle East.

DTCM operates three representative offices in China, the only country to have such a number of DTCM offices, reflecting the importance attached to the world's most populous country by the UAE in general and Dubai in particular.

The Chinese delegation includes representatives from Peking University's Middle East Studies Centre and Market Economy Academy, and Mr. Liu Yaqun, CEO of China Sports Management Group and a Member of China Stadium Committee.

Adili Wushouer, Consultant-Vice Chairman of Peking University's Middle East Studies Centre and Chinese Acrobatics Association, was also present.

Mr. Adili, who holds world records for high-altitude tightrope walking, praised Dubai's sporting infrastructure and facets of modernity.

A Uighur from China's western Xinjiang Province, he broke the world record for tightrope walking in the air for a distance of 1,530 metres in more than an hour on July 5 in Kanas, Xinjiang.

In 2002, he performed stunts 35 metres above the Jinhai Lake on the outskirts of Beijing on his way to breaking the world record of spending 22 days on the high wire. Adili stayed on the rope for 22 days, beating the 21-day Guinness world record.

It might be recalled that DTCM and Beijing Tourism Administration (BTA) recently signed an agreement to share and benefit from each other's expertise in a variety of tourism-related domains and to enlarge the scope of mutual cooperation.

The Memorandum of Tourism Cooperation was signed by the DTCM Director General Mr. Khalid A bin Sulayem and BTA Director General Ms. Zhang Huiguang.

In 2007, the UAE and China signed a MoU for the Approved Destination Status (ADS). In 2008, DTCM opened representation offices in three Chinese cities - Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. As many as 96,328 Chinese guests stayed in Dubai hotels in 2008, up by four percent compared with the previous year.