How Factori Helps Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism Understand the World’s Visitors

According to the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), the emirate hosted 19.59 million international overnight visitors in 2025.

That was the highest annual total ever recorded and marked a third consecutive year of record growth.

But Dubai’s goal goes far beyond counting visitors.

It needs to understand:

• Who those visitors are
• Where they came from
• What other destinations they visited
• How they behave across global travel journeys
• How to reach more of them before they choose another destination

His Excellency Issam Kazim, CEO of the Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, has described Dubai’s market strategy as built around “bespoke and diversified campaigns.”

Bespoke campaigns require better visitor intelligence.

Knowing that someone arrived at DXB and checked into a hotel does not tell a marketing team enough about that traveller to personalize outreach in Warsaw, São Paulo, or Seoul.

That is the gap traditional tourism statistics cannot fully solve.

The Problem With Traditional Tourism Data

Many destination management organisations still rely on fragmented reporting.

This can include:

• Impression reports that show how many people saw an ad
• Tax data that arrives after a campaign ends
• Feedback from local businesses
• Aggregated tourism statistics
• Survey-based reporting

These sources can show what happened.

They often do not explain:

• Who drove the result
• Where visitors came from
• What else they did
• Why they chose the destination

Without a fuller view of visitor activity, it becomes harder to understand demand, monitor performance, or respond quickly to market changes.

For Dubai, this challenge is larger because of the scale of its tourism strategy.

DET runs campaigns across more than 100 countries, manages relationships with over 3,000 international partners, and targets source markets that range from Western Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa.

At that scale, an incomplete view of visitors becomes a strategic problem.

What Dubai Is Actually Managing

DET is not managing one visitor market.

It is managing a large number of source markets, each with different traveller profiles and travel behaviour.

According to DET’s full-year 2025 data:

• Western Europe contributed 4.1 million visitors, or 21%
• CIS and Eastern Europe contributed 2.89 million, or 15%
• South Asia contributed 2.89 million, or 15%
• GCC contributed 2.99 million, or 15%
• MENA excluding GCC contributed 2.17 million, or 11%
• North East and South East Asia contributed 1.85 million, or 9%
• The Americas contributed 1.40 million, or 7%
• Africa contributed 897,000, or 5%
• Australasia contributed 401,000, or 2%

Each market represents a different traveller profile.

A UK leisure traveller comparing Dubai with the Maldives may need a very different message from an Indian business traveller considering Dubai as part of a longer itinerary.

Dubai’s tourism strategy has been described as data-led, globally distributed, and constantly optimised.

It operates tourism offices in cities such as London, Paris, New York, Shanghai, Riyadh, and Mumbai.

Campaigns are designed and executed across organisations including Brand Dubai, DET, Digital Dubai, and the Media Council.

Managing that level of geographic complexity requires more than hotel check-ins and survey results.

It requires a deeper picture of who visitors actually are.

The Solution: Factori’s People Data as a Visitor Intelligence Layer

Factori licenses its People Data, or Consumer Graph, to Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism as an annual database of international visitors.

The dataset includes:

• Visitor home country
• Demographic attributes
• Behavioural attributes
• Cross-destination travel behaviour
• Other destinations visitors travelled to
• How Dubai fits into wider global travel journeys

This is the kind of information traditional tourism statistics cannot easily provide.

An immigration arrival card can show nationality.

A hotel booking can show nights stayed.

Neither tells DET whether the same visitor also travelled to Singapore, what their household income is, what experiences they prioritise, or whether they are a first-time or repeat visitor.

Factori’s Consumer Graph is designed to fill this gap.

It is built using behavioural and demographic signals processed across billions of data points daily.

The data is collected through direct partnerships with premium publishers, data providers, and aggregators.

Consent and privacy compliance are built into the approach.

The result is a working view of the people behind the arrival statistics.

How DET Uses the Data

The data is used across two main functions.

Research and Market Intelligence

DET’s research teams use the dataset to study:

• Visitor origin composition
• Cross-destination travel behaviour
• Audience characteristics by source market

These insights feed into:

• Annual visitor reports
• Internal planning
• Strategic frameworks
• Global marketing investment decisions

Global Campaign Strategy

DET’s marketing teams use visitor intelligence to improve targeting and segmentation.

For example, understanding that a Western European visitor to Dubai also travels to other long-haul leisure destinations can change how Dubai positions itself competitively.

Likewise, understanding that South Asian visitors include both business and leisure segments can affect channel and message choices across cities such as Mumbai and Delhi.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Consider a DET team preparing a campaign for travellers in a Central European market.

Traditional statistics may show how many visitors came from that market.

They do not show who those visitors are.

With Factori’s Consumer Graph, the team can study:

• Income segments
• Behavioural characteristics
• Experiences associated with the visit
• Other destinations those travellers considered or visited

That information can influence:

• Which experiences the campaign leads with
• Which channels receive more focus
• Which audience segments are prioritised
• Which competitive positioning is used

The campaign brief can move from:

“Reach Central European travellers”

to:

“Reach the specific segment of Central European travellers most likely to convert, with the message most likely to resonate.”

DET’s wider partnership model with data providers follows the same principle.

Through its extended relationship with Amadeus, DET has described the goal as measuring success and gaining deeper insight into traveller intention and patterns.

Factori’s Consumer Graph works in the same way: visitor intelligence is converted into more precise campaign decisions.

Multi-Year Renewal as a Quality Signal

Factori has served as a consumer intelligence source for DET across multiple renewal cycles.

That matters because point-in-time data purchases are common.

A multi-year relationship suggests that the data continued to be useful after initial evaluation.

DET’s teams were able to:

• Compare the data against other sources
• Use it in research
• Apply it to marketing decisions
• Continue the relationship across renewal cycles

DET’s approach to data partnerships is based on a clear principle: the data should help teams make better decisions about campaigns and initiatives designed to increase international tourism.

Factori’s continued role in that ecosystem reflects a dataset that has supported those requirements.

The data is designed to be:

• Accurate enough for strategic decisions
• Privacy-compliant enough for a government organisation
• Broad enough to cover Dubai’s diverse source markets

His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General of DET, has described Dubai’s tourism success in terms of careful planning and agile policy implementation.

He has also positioned tourism as a core part of Dubai’s wider growth strategy.

Consumer intelligence contributes to that planning by helping teams understand the audiences behind international visitation.

Stakeholder Quotes

No public statement from a named DET representative specifically referencing Factori was found at the time of writing.

If a direct quote exists from an internal review, partnership discussion, or co-presented research context, it should be added here.

A single attributed quote from a DET contact would be the strongest addition to this case study.

Results

Better Visibility Into Visitor Origins and Travel Patterns

DET’s research teams gain a consumer-level view of who visits Dubai, where they come from, and how Dubai fits into wider global travel journeys.

This goes beyond what traditional arrival statistics can show.

Faster, Data-Driven Research and Reporting

Internal teams can generate market insights from a structured, annually refreshed dataset.

This reduces reliance on slower survey-based or aggregated official data sources.

More Precise Global Campaign Targeting

Campaign teams can tailor outreach by source market using visitor characteristics rather than nationality and headcount alone.

Multi-Year Renewal as a Trusted Intelligence Partner

The continued relationship reflects data that has been used and evaluated by DET’s research and marketing teams across multiple cycles.

Why This Matters for Tourism Boards and Destination Marketers

Tourism boards and destination marketing organisations often rely on:

• Arrival data
• Survey samples
• Hotel occupancy
• Aggregated market reports

These sources remain useful.

But they may not provide enough detail for complex global audience strategies.

Factori’s Consumer Graph adds another layer of visitor intelligence.

It helps destination organisations understand:

• Who their visitors are
• Where else they travel
• What patterns shape their journeys
• How different source markets behave
• How campaigns can be tailored more precisely

For organisations responsible for increasing international visitation, this can turn arrival data into deeper audience understanding.