Visa is the preferred way to pay at home and abroad

The figures reveal that spending on Visa cards by foreign visitors to the UAE for the year to December 2001 reached US$637.6 million, 7 per cent up from the previous year. Total transactions rose by 20 per cent during the same period to 3.2 million and the average value of each transaction was US$213.

The biggest spenders in the UAE were UK cardholders (US$158.8 million), followed by the United States (US$74.5 million), Saudi Arabia (US$73 million), France (US$27 million), Kuwait (US$23.5 million), Egypt (US$23 million) and Germany (US$22.9 million).

Total worldwide international expenditure on Visa cards reached a staggering US$3.4 billion, with the most popular destinations recorded as the United Kingdom, United States of America, Germany, France and Saudi Arabia. The UAE is ranked the 30th most popular tourist destination out of a total 130 countries.

"Clearly, Visa cards are the most popular way for international travellers to pay for their travel expenses," said Peter Scriven, General Manager for Visa in the Middle East. Visa cards are accepted at 16,124 locations in the UAE and with this figure growing daily tourists can continue to enjoy the ease and convenience of paying with Visa.

Spending by UAE cardholders abroad increased during the past year from US$335 million to US$398 million, an increase of nearly 19 per cent; resulting from 2.3 million transactions for the year, an improvement of nearly 30 per cent from 2000.

The most popular global destinations for UAE cardholders in the past year were the UK, the USA, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India and Germany. Total cardholder spend in these countries was US$78 million in the UK; US$63 million in the USA; US$23 million in France; US$15 million in Germany, US$14 million in Saudi Arabia and US$13 million in both Egypt and India.

The United Arab Emirates is one of the fastest-developing countries in the world today and is rapidly becoming recognised as a world hub for trading, finance and tourism, with one of the fastest tourism growth rates of any destination in the world.

Looking to the future, Visa's priority in the UAE, and around the Gulf, remains growing its presence against its main competitor - cash. "We want to see more small-scale payments taking place using payment cards," confirmed Scriven. "Payment cards are faster, easier to use and more convenient than cash. And you can use them in many different ways - scale your repayments, travel abroad with a single card and pay anywhere...there are so many possibilities with payment cards. Visa means payment - wherever you are, whoever you are, and whatever you are buying."

ENDS